A lot of Mainers may volunteer, but we’re not breaking our backs doing it.

That’s the long and short of a federal report about volunteering in America. The Corporation for National and Community Service found Americans across the country doing more volunteering than four years ago. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of Americans volunteering increased from 59.5 million to 65.4, about a 10 percent increase.

The rate in Maine went up about 6 percent in the same period, from 335,300 to 355,400.

Fewer men than women volunteer in Maine, but the men who do volunteer give considerably more hours.

Only 29.5 percent of men in Maine volunteer, but they offer an average of 50 hours per year. About 36.5 percent of women volunteer in Maine, but they do so for an average of 40 hours per year.

Nationally, women volunteer at a 32.4 percent rate, but they offer an average of 50 hours per year, 10 more hours per week than the average woman in Maine.

Natonally, people over 65 are less likely to volunteer than those in other age groups but, when they do, they offer many more hours.

In Maine, 25.8 percent of seniors volunteer, and they give an average of 96 hours per year.

That’s about the same rate as nationally.

Those between 16 and 24 are the least likely to volunteer, roughly one in every four does so here and across the U.S.

But Maine teens are likely to offer only 24 hours of service compared to an average of 36 nationally.

Interestingly, other Americans put many more of their volunteer hours into religious activities. Nationally, 34.8 percent of volunteers do so, while in Maine only 19.1 percent do.

Mainers do more volunteering in sports, social/community service and in hospitals.

Perhaps what should concern us the most is what the Corporation for National and Community Service calls the “intensity of service.”

While we rank 16th in the U.S. in the percentage of people who volunteer, we are 44th in intensity, or the median number of hours we give overall.

Consider this: About 48 percent of the people in Utah volunteer, and they give an average of 96 hours per year. In Maine, 33.2 of us volunteer, but we only volunteer half as many hours, or 46 per year, the lowest in New England.

We like to think of ourselves as a state with small, tight-knit communities where people pitch in to help out with community causes.

We are, but the survey paints a more mixed view of reality with more than enough room for improvement.