Table 3.

Percentage distribution of background characteristics and mean age of mothers of births, by desire scale group: Births to women aged 20–44 (unadjusted sample) from the NSFG 2002, 2006–2010

Characteristics of Mother	Highest Desire	Desire 4	Desire 3	Desire 2	Lowest Desire	All Births
Age 20–24	0.18	0.26*	0.28*	0.43*	0.42*	0.30
Age 25–29	0.35	0.38	0.31	0.31	0.26*	0.33
Age 30–44	0.46	0.36*	0.41	0.26*	0.32*	0.37
Married	0.86	0.76*	0.65*	0.48*†	0.40*	0.65
Cohabiting	0.10	0.17*	0.21*	0.29*	0.28*	0.20
Not in Union	0.04	0.07*	0.14*	0.23*†	0.31*	0.15
First Birth	0.38	0.34	0.39	0.31*†	0.21*	0.33
Second Birth	0.39	0.38	0.37	0.37†	0.23*	0.35
Third Birth or Higher	0.24	0.28	0.24	0.32*†	0.56*	0.32
Non-Hispanic White	0.70	0.63*	0.60*	0.57*†	0.49*	0.60
Hispanic	0.16	0.20	0.20	0.19	0.21*	0.19
Native-born Hispanic	0.05	0.08*	0.08*	0.08*	0.11*	0.08
Foreign-born Hispanic	0.11	0.13	0.12	0.10	0.11	0.11
Non-Hispanic Black	0.08	0.09	0.12*	0.18*†	0.24*	0.14
Non-Hispanic Other	0.05	0.08	0.08	0.06	0.05	0.06
Born Outside United States	0.19	0.20	0.22	0.16	0.15	0.19
Delivery Paid by Medicaid	0.20	0.29*	0.33*	0.48*†	0.55*	0.36
High School Graduate	0.88	0.86	0.85	0.80*	0.76*	0.83
Her Mother’s Education
<High school graduate	0.24	0.23	0.27	0.28	0.33*	0.27
High school graduate	0.38	0.33	0.34	0.32	0.31*	0.34
Some college or more	0.37	0.44*	0.39	0.40	0.36	0.39
Mean Age at Conception	29.2	28.0*	28.3*	26.5*	27.1*	27.9
n	829	870	854	851	852	4,256

Note: Proportions sum to 1 within intention status groups (column).

^*p < .05 (paired t test vs. highest desire)

^†p < .05 (paired t test of desire 2 vs. lowest desire)