An Investigator Hired by a Client Suing for Sex Discrimination

An investigator hired by a client suing for sex discrimination has developed a multiple regression model for employee salaries for the company in question. In this multiple regression model, the salaries are in thousands of dollars. For example, a data entry of 35 for the dependent variable indicates a salary of $35,000. The indicator (dummy) variable for gender is coded as X₁ = 0 if male and X₁ = 1 if female. The computer output of this multiple regression model shows that the coefficient for this variable (X₁) is −4.2. The t test showed that X₁ was significant at α = .1. This result implies that for male and female workers of the company,

A) on the average, females earn $4,200 less than males.
B) on the average, males earn $4,200 less than females.
C) on the average, salaries do not differ between males and females.
D) on the average, males have 4.2 more years of experience than females.
E) on the average, females have 4.2 more years of experience than males.