search for: boy_i

...ositions of the male children within their family's birth history. So, I was thinking of creating six variables boy_1, boy_2, ..., boy_6. boy_1 would record the position of the first boy, boy_2 would record the position of the second boy and so on till boy_6. I want to assign a value of zero to boy_i if the family in question did not have the i_th boy. I am not sure how best to do this (i.e., whether to create variables as I have suggested or do something else) and would appreciate any suggestions. Later, I want to use the information on the position of the male births to compute a likelihood...