Three professors examined awareness of four widely disseminated retirement rules among employees at the University of Utah. These rules provide simple answers to questions about retirement planning (R. N. Mayer, C. D. Zick, and M. Glaittle, “Public Awareness of Retirement Planning Rules of Thumb,” Journal of Personal Finance, 2011 10 (1), 12–35). At the time of the investigation, there were approximately 10,000 benefited employees, and 3,095 participated in the study. Demographic data collected on these 3,095 employees included gender, age (years), education level (years completed), marital status, household income ($), and employment category.
a. Describe the population of interest.
b. Describe the sample that was collected.
c. Indicate whether each of the demographic variables mentioned is categorical or numerical.