By Kathryn Skelton,Staff Writer

We’re living in sin and are light on babies.

In a new Census comparison, Maine is the state most likely to have couples shacking up and least likely to have little ones at home.

The results of the data released Thursday are curious: Maine’s not altar-phobic – it has slightly more married households than the U.S. average.

One possible explanation: forming households and putting your money together can make living in a low-income state easier, said Betty Robinson, an associate professor in the Leadership and Organizational Studies program at Lewiston-Auburn College, part of the University of Southern Maine. She also teaches sociology.

“Low income could be the explanation again” for the low fertility rate, Robinson added. “There’s a myth out there that low-income people have more children to get more welfare, even though that is a myth.”

Economists have suggested that Maine’s low birth rate, which has dogged the state for years, is closely tied to its demographics. White families generally have fewer children than minority families.

Compared to the national average:

• Maine recorded 54 births for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, the lowest fertility rate in the country. The U.S. average is almost 70.

• Maine women were more likely to be back to work a year after having a baby.

• Maine men marry at an ever-so-slightly younger age than the national median (26.6 years old, versus 26.7) and Maine women at an ever-so-slightly older age (25.6 years old versus 25.1)

• Maine had fewer teenagers giving birth and fewer unwed mothers.

• Just 2.6 percent of women who had a baby in the last year were noncitizens, compared to a national average of 14.6.

John Baugher, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern Maine, said it’s possible that today there is less stigma to living together before marriage. The numbers could also show, he said, that more gay and lesbian couples are creating households in Maine – and they can’t get married.

Either way, living together doesn’t seem to be postponing wedding bells overall, Baugher said, since the age people in Maine are marrying for the first time so closely resembles the national figures.

Robinson said that “income demands, possibly along with that the strength of work ethic in Maine” might be getting new mothers back into the work force here so quickly. Nationally, 56.1 percent of women were back at work within a year of having a baby. In Maine, that figure was 59.3 percent.

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