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West Valley City • James and Sherry Sorensen are raising four children, all boys. Their household is twice as large as the national average. But Sherry says it doesn't feel like she has a big family, at least, not in Utah.
"Four children is just average," the West Valley City mom says. "I think you need to have at least five for it to be big. It used to be that you needed eight or nine before people considered it large."
That helps to illustrate two things. First, that Utah again has the largest median household size in the nation, according to census estimates released Tuesday. Second, over time, Utah is trending toward the rest of the nation in many family related categories. So, for example, what Utahns consider to be a big family is shrinking as time passes.
"That's because we are more connected to the outside world now. Utah used to be an isolated, tiny place," said University of Utah research economist Pam Perlich. "As we become more connected to the outside world, we tend to resemble it more over time. ... Utah lags national trends by about two or 2.5 generations."
Utah state demographer Juliette Tennert adds that the state is unique largely because of the pro-family influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"Utah will continue to be unique for some time," Tennert said. "While we are slowly becoming more like the rest of the nation, we still won't be getting to the national averages in any of those [family related] categories anytime soon."
In addition to having the largest median household size, family friendly Utah also leads the nation in having the youngest median age (because of all its children), highest percentage of stay-at-home moms, youngest age at marriage, highest ratio of children to workers and most households that have children.
The Census Bureau's 2009 findings released Tuesday were from its annual American Community Survey. They are the final nationwide survey estimates to be released before the once-every-decade 2010 census count of every household becomes available beginning in December.
Much of the data released Tuesday indicates the Sorensens have what seems to be an average family for Utah but that makes it anything but typical by national standards.
For example, Sherry Sorensen is a stay-at-home mom.
"My mom died when I was eight. … Because I didn't have a mother around, I wanted my kids to have that," she said.
The new data indicate that 50.4 percent of Utah children have at least one stay-at-home parent, the most of any state. The national average is 40.0 percent.
Sherry also had a baby last year. Utah's birthrate almost always leads the nation but had a big downward blip in 2009 falling to No. 4 in the United States. It had an estimated 74 births per 1,000 women between age 15 and 50, down from 82 per 1,000 the previous year.
Tennert said that could be because the recession hit hard in 2009, perhaps making more families decide that they couldn't afford another baby at that time.
Perlich said it may also be because a 1980s baby boom in Utah, made up of what had been younger women, is aging and moving out of prime childbearing years.
The many children in the Sorensen family and other Utah families lead to a common question Sherry Sorensen is asked when others see her with her four children.
"I'm always asked if I am going to have more," she said. "I'm fine with four."
Because of its many children, Utah has the youngest average median age of any state: 28.8 years old, compared with the national average of 36.8 years old. (Utah's median age is creeping up very slowly and has increased from 28.5 years in 2005).
Also, Utah has the nation's largest average household size: 3.17 people, compared with the national average of 2.63. (Perlich says Utah's median household went up a bit between 2008 and 2009, probably because the recession forced more people to live together to save money which almost always happens in recessions. But over the longer term, household sizes have decreased).
Utah also has the highest ratio of children to adult workers: 52.2 per 100 workers, compared with a national average of 38.6. That means fewer workers are available per child to pay taxes for such things as schools.
Utah also has the highest percentage of households with one or more children (42.9 percent) and the highest percent of households headed by married couples with children of their own (32 percent).
Sherry Sorensen said that she was 19 years old when she married, while her husband was 23. Utah almost always leads the nation in youngest age at first marriage and other marriage-related categories.
For 2009, Utah had the youngest median age at first marriage for men: 25.7 years old, compared with a national average of 28.4. That average age at marriage for Utah men has been inching up in recent years. In 2005, it was 24.6.
Meanwhile, Utah women dropped from having the youngest age at marriage in 2008 to having the third youngest in 2009. The median age in 2009 was 24.1 years. That has crept up from 22.1 in 2005.
Utah was No. 1 for the percent of households that are married-couple families, 60.5 percent.
Utah was near the top in the nation for its overall marriage rates. Men in the state had the second-highest rate at 29.6 per 1,000 adult males. Utah's women had the third-highest rate nationally, 26.7 marriages per 1,000 adult women.
In key data besides family matters, the new estimates indicate the median household income in Utah in 2009 was $55,117 15th best in the nation, up from being No. 18 in 2005.
The median income for males who work full time was $45,800, ranking 21st best (up from No. 24 in 2005). But the median income for women who work full time was $31,186, ranking No. 37 among the states just as it did in 2005. For years, Utah has led the nation in the number of births per women, but it dropped to No. 4 last year. It had an estimated 74 births per 1,000 women age 15 to 50, down from 82 per 1,000 the previous year.
Utah state demographer Juliette Tennert said that could be because the recession hit hard in 2009, perhaps making more families decide they couldn't afford another baby at the time.
University of Utah research economist Pam Perlich said it may also be because a 1980s baby-boom bubble of what had been younger women is getting older, and that group may be moving out of its prime child-earing years.