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Women in the workforce

by David@VeritasPrep » Mon Nov 29, 2010 3:50 pm
In honor of the Veritas Essentials Course that is coming to locations nationwide this weekend (and in the online classroom as well) I offer this original critical reasoning question. As always your comments are most appreciated...

Official Answer and a thorough explanation to follow.

Within the past six months, women have, for the first time, become the majority of the American workforce. Despite comprising more than 50% of the population, women have always been outnumbered by men in the area of employment. However, with the recent recession, companies have been laying off manufacturing workers and those without college degrees at higher rates, while retaining better educated, younger workers and even hiring more workers in service industries.

Which of the following inferences is must supported by the information above?

A) When the recession is over, men will again comprise the majority of the workforce.

B) At least one group of Americans has been underrepresented in employment.

C) More women are currently employed than at any time in the history of the United States.

D) There are now more jobs in the service sector than in any other sector of the economy.

E) Women are now earning more college degrees than men.


NOTE: Question edited in response to comments below.
Last edited by David@VeritasPrep on Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by rkanthilal » Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:05 pm
IMO B
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by rkanthilal » Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:29 pm
David,

I have a question about answer B. I think it is the right answer but I have one problem with it.

The answer reads, "Until recently, at least one group of Americans was underrepresented in employment".

Does "until recently" mean that in the recent past at least one group of Americans was underrepresented in employment and now that group is no longer underrepresented? This is the way I interpreted the statement. I believe this interpretation makes this answer choice incorrect. I don't think we can infer that women are no longer underrepresented.

The passage states that historically women have comprised more than 50% of the population and less than 50% of the workforce. This implies that they were underrepresented in the workforce. Just because women are now the majority of the American workforce does not necessarily mean they are no longer underrepresented. What if the women comprise 75% of the population and only 51% of the workforce? In this case they are the majority of the workforce and they are still underrepresented.

I have bigger issues with the other answers so I believe B is correct. I just have this one problem with it and I'm wondering if I interpreted the statement correctly. Thanks.
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by The Jock » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:31 pm
Hey David,

I think the answer is E.
My Reasoning: within past six months women have become majority of workforce and these past six months were hit by recession. in the recession time firms are firing manufacturing workers and those without degrees but hiring those who are better educated. So if firms are hiring women(as the first line tells us) we can infer that women are better educated and women have more college degrees.
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by beat_gmat_09 » Mon Nov 29, 2010 7:55 pm
My take B -
A - When the recession is over, men will again comprise the majority of the workforce.
Extreme.
B - Until recently, at least one group of Americans was underrepresented in employment.
After POE.
C - More women are currently employed than at any time in the history of the United States.
Extreme
D - There are now more jobs in the service sector than in any other sector of the economy.
Out of scope.
E - Women are now earning more college degrees than men.
Extreme.
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by KrazyKarl » Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:08 pm
I like B. The "at least one" is a pretty easy-to-prove statement for an inference question, which helps, and everything else seems really tough to prove on the basis of what is given.

Thanks for sharing the question, David! Keep them coming!
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by jaxis » Mon Nov 29, 2010 11:19 pm
@ Rkanthilal

When the statement says the until recently atleast one group was underrepresented it does not mean they are now 'not underrepresented'(they may still be underrepresented).

What i mean is the statement makes inference only till recent past and we cannot conclude anything about the present situation from that statement.for this reason 'B' is a perfect answer.

But i may be wrong , we will wait for David to clarify.
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by diebeatsthegmat » Tue Nov 30, 2010 8:33 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:In honor of the Veritas Essentials Course that is coming to locations nationwide this weekend (and in the online classroom as well) I offer this original critical reasoning question. As always your comments are most appreciated...

Official Answer and a thorough explanation to follow.

Within the past six months, women have, for the first time, become the majority of the American workforce. Despite comprising more than 50% of the population, women have always been outnumbered by men in the area of employment. However, with the recent recession, companies have been laying off manufacturing workers and those without college degrees at higher rates, while retaining better educated, younger workers and even hiring more workers in service industries.

Which of the following inferences is must supported by the information above?

A) When the recession is over, men will again comprise the majority of the workforce.
 ( so extreme)
B) At least one group of Americans has been underrepresented in employment. ( i dont understand this sentence :( )

C) More women are currently employed than at any time in the history of the United States. ( at any time? this is unknown or so extreme)

D) There are now more jobs in the service sector than in any other sector of the economy. ( comparision among services are not mentioned)

E) Women are now earning more college degrees than men. ( my answer. i chose this answer because of 2 sentences in the text : "women have been outnumbered by men in the area of employment". ( i dont really understand this sentence. does it mean that the number of women employeed by company is much more than the number of men?) and " while retaining better educated, younger workers and ....industries"


NOTE: Question edited in response to comments below.
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by shovan85 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 8:50 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote: Within the past six months, women have, for the first time, become the majority of the American workforce. Despite comprising more than 50% of the population, women have always been outnumbered by men in the area of employment. However, with the recent recession, companies have been laying off manufacturing workers and those without college degrees at higher rates, while retaining better educated, younger workers and even hiring more workers in service industries.

Which of the following inferences is must supported by the information above?
IMO B

A) When the recession is over, men will again comprise the majority of the workforce.
This is a future event to the recession, so it depends on several factors to be MUST be true. So cannot be a correct inference.

B) At least one group of Americans has been underrepresented in employment.
Though women are 50% of population they were underrepresented in employment prior to recession and Now Men are underrepresented. And also Yes, it is left after POE.

C) More women are currently employed than at any time in the history of the United States.
The passage says about past six months the time of recession. This same trend could have been seen in Past recessions also. So Incorrect.

D) There are now more jobs in the service sector than in any other sector of the economy.
Passage says more hiring is happening in Service sector, so we cannot say about the number of Jobs and moreover we cannot compare this to other fields. The usage of Any is extreme. Wrong.

E) Women are now earning more college degrees than men.
Passage says college degrees people are also fired in a low ratio, but fired. Also more educated people are retained not all college degree holders.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Tue Nov 30, 2010 1:53 pm
OA is B.

We ended up with a good amount of discussion on this one!

I edited the correct answer a little in response to rkanthilal's comment. The original question said "until recently, at least one group of Americans was underrepresented in employment." The "until recently" may have been too specific, since it may still be possible that some group is currently underrepresented now.

The edited answer choice B now says, "At least one group of Americans has been underrepresented in employment." As KrazyKarl says this is a really good type of answer choice for an inference question. This is not hard to prove, the language "at least one group" without any time frame means that if it can be shown that any group at any time was underrepresented then this answer is correct.

We know from the stimulus that women have (and do) make up more than 50% of the U.S. population. We also know that they have (in the past) been outnumbered by men in the workforce. So this is good enough to state that women have been underrepresented in the workforce. It is possible that they are still underrepresented. It is also possible that men no longer make up their fair share of the workers. So either group might be underrepresented now. But this does not matter we know that in the past (at least) women have been underrepresented and that is enough.

As for approaching this question: Process of elimination is a good way to approach these questions with most of the incorrect answers going beyond the scope of the stimulus.

Choice A is incorrect because it could be false, the future is unknown and women (or men) may be the majority of the workforce for the future.

Choice C could be false because it confuses the ratio of women to men in the workforce which is the highest ever, with the total number of women. If the total workforce is lower, women could be making up an increasing share of a shrinking pie.

Choice D could be false because the relative numbers of jobs in the various sectors of the economy are not discussed.

Finally choice E is was added to this question to give it a good distraction choice. This choice plays on something said in the stimulus and so is very attractive. This is something that happens on GMAT questions alot. In this case, we know that better educated and younger workers are not being laid off whereas those without college degrees are being laid off. Choice E capitalizes on this to distract. It states that women are now earning more college degrees then men. We do not know that this is necessarily true. There are several ways in which men could still be earning more degrees and this not showing up in the employment picture. For example, some men could have multiple degrees while others have none are get laid off. Or many of the men with college degrees might not be seeking employment. So it could be false that women are earning more degrees. And remember this is a broad statement to make and the stimulus does not state that this is the only factor effecting employment so this one is not "must be true."

Thanks to everyone that posted!
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by rishab1988 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 1:59 pm
Thank God I was on the right one.

I was somehow stuck with E.But I never eliminate an answer without any reason.C was definitely right,but what was wrong with E?

Finally I realized the statement also said "the companies fired manufacturing workers and lower educated one".

Now I can do anything with this statement.What if there are 1000 men ,of whom 50% are in workforce=500,and all of them are employed in manufacturing industry[the premise has no restrictions on this one]

So, male workforce=500;

At the same time 200 men acquired college degrees but in a field related to manufacturing[they were dumb.what if?]

So total workforce still=500.
College graduates now=200

Since the premise clearly states that women have always outnumbered men in population,let the number of women=1100,of whom 40% are in workforce=440.

So,female workforce=440

Let's assume 70 females acquired college degrees in a field related to services industry.All of them get hired.

Female workforce=510

No of females having college degrees=70.

Hence disproved

If you no reason for why an answer is wrong,think again.

just saying too extreme.I don't like it.It doesn't seem so is not enough!
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by rishab1988 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 2:04 pm
diebeatsthegmat wrote:
David@VeritasPrep wrote:In honor of the Veritas Essentials Course that is coming to locations nationwide this weekend (and in the online classroom as well) I offer this original critical reasoning question. As always your comments are most appreciated...

Official Answer and a thorough explanation to follow.

Within the past six months, women have, for the first time, become the majority of the American workforce. Despite comprising more than 50% of the population, women have always been outnumbered by men in the area of employment. However, with the recent recession, companies have been laying off manufacturing workers and those without college degrees at higher rates, while retaining better educated, younger workers and even hiring more workers in service industries.

Which of the following inferences is must supported by the information above?

A) When the recession is over, men will again comprise the majority of the workforce.
 ( so extreme)
B) At least one group of Americans has been underrepresented in employment. ( i dont understand this sentence :( )

C) More women are currently employed than at any time in the history of the United States. ( at any time? this is unknown or so extreme)

D) There are now more jobs in the service sector than in any other sector of the economy. ( comparision among services are not mentioned)

E) Women are now earning more college degrees than men. ( my answer. i chose this answer because of 2 sentences in the text : "women have been outnumbered by men in the area of employment". ( i dont really understand this sentence. does it mean that the number of women employeed by company is much more than the number of men?) and " while retaining better educated, younger workers and ....industries"


NOTE: Question edited in response to comments below.
This was your biggest mistake.You eliminated B for no reason-you didn't understand.If you don't think harder.

Underrepresented btw means outnumbered by something else.

This is the biggest weakness of non-native speakers.You should understand each and every word,especially in CR.
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by gmat1011 » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:38 am
i was stuck b/w b and e and ended up picking e.

i really don't understand the scope of the concept of "under-representation" generally for GMAT purposes and the use of "has been" in option b of this question

1. under-rep: if it means women's presence on the workforce needs to be in the exact same proportion as their presence in the population, then it may be that women are still under-repped. women are >50% of the pop and the "majority" in the workforce. but this leaves open the possibility that women are 99% of the pop now but only have 51% presence in the workforce which may mean they are still under-repped

2. use of "has been" to me indicates something that is done/completed and is a thing of the past. this website: https://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic17402.html seems to indicate that "has been" refers to things from the past when you can't precisely say when in the past; whereas "was" also refers to a thing from the past, but you can pin-point when that happened -- not sure about this technical distinction, but the general point is that "has been" means - something is done and not something which is still happening.

if that the case then use of "has been" in b in a way implies that women are no longer un-repped... but 1. above leaves open the possibility that that can still happen and women can continue to be under-repped... in which case the "must be true" standard for inference may not be met...
i guess looking back even e seems to fail the "must be true" test...
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by rkanthilal » Thu Dec 02, 2010 8:32 am
gmat1011 wrote:i was stuck b/w b and e and ended up picking e.

i really don't understand the scope of the concept of "under-representation" generally for GMAT purposes and the use of "has been" in option b of this question

1. under-rep: if it means women's presence on the workforce needs to be in the exact same proportion as their presence in the population, then it may be that women are still under-repped. women are >50% of the pop and the "majority" in the workforce. but this leaves open the possibility that women are 99% of the pop now but only have 51% presence in the workforce which may mean they are still under-repped

Hi gmat1011... Your interpretation of the word underrepresented is correct. It means that if women make up a certain percentage of the population they should also make up a similar percentage of the workforce. If women make up a smaller percentage of the workforce relative to their percentage of the population, they are considered underrepresented in the workforce.

2. use of "has been" to me indicates something that is done/completed and is a thing of the past. this website: https://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic17402.html seems to indicate that "has been" refers to things from the past when you can't precisely say when in the past; whereas "was" also refers to a thing from the past, but you can pin-point when that happened -- not sure about this technical distinction, but the general point is that "has been" means - something is done and not something which is still happening.

Your question about whether women are still underrepresented in the workforce is similar to the one I posted above. In David's final post he made a change to the answer to clear up any confusion. (Refer to both of these posts)

if that the case then use of "has been" in b in a way implies that women are no longer un-repped... but 1. above leaves open the possibility that that can still happen and women can continue to be under-repped... in which case the "must be true" standard for inference may not be met...
i guess looking back even e seems to fail the "must be true" test...
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by gmat1011 » Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:41 am
hi kanthilal - yes i read through the posts and they did help... that should be the answer. i don't know maybe i am reading too much into the use of "has been"

...at least one bank has been robbed ---> i guess you can't say for sure that the bank which was robbed is not being robbed again right at the very moment this observation is made

at least one group has been under-repped ---> has the same quality to it... women may be still be under-repped when one says this, but that can't deny the fact that it happened in the past...
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