Statistics question, I am not sure if I have the correct answer!?

Question

A study found a correlation of r = -0.61 between the sex of a worker and his or her income. You conclude that:
a) women earn more than men on average.
b) women earn less than men on average.
c) an arithmetic mistake was made; this is not a possible value of r.
d) this is nonsense because r makes no sense here.
e) the correlation of -0.61 is not meaningful here because the relationship between sex and income is likely nonlinear.

I think it is D because nothing else makes sense but I am not sure.

Answer 1

Well setting aside the fact that the question means gender not sex I think it's d) because gender is an attribute not a numerical value and anyway you have no idea which way round the data is for men and women.



And also the question is an insult to the transgender community - no sorry wait a minute I'm not in family and relationships section now.

Answer 2

ANSWER: d) Because you have a varying range of income (y) but only Male or Female (2 values of x)



Justification

Cannot be a or b because you would have a mean salary for women and a mean salary for men - just two point so cannot compute correlation

c) Cannot be c) because r can range from -1 to + 1

e) same argument as for a and b

Answer 3

You're right. The problem is that sex is not numerical. r compares 2 numerical variables. Even if sex were defined numerically by assigning values, there are 2 problems: (1) The question doesn't tell us the only relevant detail - which sex was assigned a greater number; (2) r would still be inappropriate because for a variable with only 2 possible values, there are better ways to compare to a second variable.

Answer 4

r is the pmcc therefore does make sense, I personally believe the answer is e because the gender of an individual does not reflect onto their income in our society nowadays, it used but not anymore... Therefore the relationship is likely nonlinear