use strict;
use warnings;

my @occurances = ( 
 [ 'male' ],
 [ 'male' ],
 [ 'male', 'child' ],
 [ 'female' ],
 [ 'child', 'female' ],
 [ 'female', 'child' ],
 [ 'female', 'male', 'child' ],
 );

my @terms = (
  [ 'male' ],
  [ 'female' ],
  [ 'child' ],
  [ 'male', 'female' ],
  [ 'male', 'child' ],
  [ 'female', 'child' ],
  [ 'male', 'female', 'child' ],
);

my %tally;
foreach my $array_ref ( @occurances ) {
  $tally{stringify(@$array_ref)}++;
}

foreach my $array_ref ( @terms ) {
 if ( defined $tally{stringify(@$array_ref)}) {
   print "Terms:" . 
      join (" and ", @$array_ref) . 
      " were found " . 
      $tally{stringify(@$array_ref)} . " times\n" 
 }
 else { print "Terms:" . 
         join (" and ", @$array_ref) . 
         " were found 0 times\n"  
 }
}

sub stringify { join ("+", sort {$b cmp $a} @_) }