Book Chapter

Identifying the determinants of lifelong singlehood via boosted mixture cure models

Briseno Sanchez, G., Carollo, A., Klein, N.

In: O’Sullivan, D., Sweeney, J., Moghaddam, S., Burke, K. (Eds.): Proceedings of the 39th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling: Limerick City, Limerick, Ireland, 13-18 July, 2025 , 104–109
Limerick, Ireland, University of Limerick (2025)

ISBN 978-1-0369-2711-0

Open Access

Abstract

We combine distributional mixture cure models and automatic variable selection via component-wise boosting to analyse romantic partnerships using demographic data from Germany. By defining lifelong singles as individuals who do not enter a co-residential relationship by age 50, we frame the problem as a mixture cure time-to-event model. Our approach allows to estimate the proportion of individuals who will remain single as well as to identify the most important predictors for the probability of remaining single, and entering a cohabitation.