Poisson and household size

In this paper we describe some recent work on the statistical modelling of household size distributions. This includes the use of age ratios using three major age groups (0-19, 20-59, and 60+), together with a Poisson distribution. We also provide a three-dimensional representation of the Poisson distribution which is linked with an associated gamma distribution. Connections are given in this work to a Poisson process model linked to births of children, and why it yields a successful statistical model. © Applied Probability Trust 2015.