I major in science, and my knowledge of statistics is rather superficial.

Problem
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I had to find a data set and analyze it to the best of my ability as an assignement for my statistics course. This is no longer an assignment, I just need help in interpreting why I did my analysis badly and what I should have done instead. 

**I used a categorical data set of employment rates in New Zealand, planning to arrange it in a 2x2 contingency table and use Pearson's chi-squared test and Fisher's exact test to test whether gender correlates with employment.** 

What I want to answer
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1. Understand why I cannot use chi-squared test and Fisher's exact test for this problem and learn what I should have used instead. "Odds-ratio as a function of time", I assume? Any useful links on how do that, perfectly in R?
2. Understand the "sequential correlation" comment regarding the first part of the assignment and what exactly should I have done.

Way to help me #1 (shorter)
---------------------------

That's how our data looks (based on a census):

```
                 Male     Female
Employed      1201600    1060200
Unemployed      73300      75000

```

I did a chi-squared test and a Fisher's exact test in R, assuming that the obtained p-value will tell me the probability of such a distribution of jobs (or one more extreme) given that the null is true (that males and females have equal chances of getting a job). I got a very small p-value, and Fisher's test gave me odds ratio of 1.16, meaning that there is a correlation, and specifically males are 16% more likely to find a job in NZ.

However, according to my lecturer, I used these tests inappropriately. I didn't quite understand why, but I think he was saying that these tests assume independence, and because there's a given amount of jobs available in NZ, our samples are not independent... I'm not sure about it though (you can see his feedback quoted below).

Way to help me #2 (longer)
--------------------------

If you have some spare time, I would appreciate it very much if you could look at the whole assignment. I will also provide the lecturer's feedback, so if you could interpret it for me, it would be great! The assignment is very easy for a mathematician / statistician, there's only two questions there, it's just full of padding where I tried to demonstrate that I know what I'm doing, you can skip most of it.

Here's the link to a PDF file with the assignment I didn't succeed in: [statistics assignment.pdf](http://www.mediafire.com/view/htok3yi8i9nfxx4/Statistics%20assignment.pdf).

Lecturer's feedback
-------------------

> 
> Your figure 1 exhibits sequential correlation which is the real reason why linear regression does not work. Neither fisher's test nor chi squared is good for your 2x2 table. This is because you want to test homogeneity, but you are rejecting the null because of non-independence (which is not interesting). The distinction between the two is irrelevant here (they are asymptotically identical in any case). You could have plotted the odds ratio as a function of time.
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