About 37% of black men were married when their first child was born, compared with 52% for Hispanic men and 77% for white men

Kevin Orland:

About half of U.S. men without a high school education have fathered a child outside of marriage, while 6 percent of male college graduates have done so, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released today.

The report also shows that men with a college education on average expected to have two children, fewer than the average 2.9 children expected by men without a high school diploma.

"Education is a big driving factor for a lot of the results in this survey," Gladys Martinez, the CDC demographer who led the study, said in an interview. "When you get higher education, you're more focused on that, so you're waiting to do other things."

The report also found disparities in when men of different races have children. About 25 percent of black fathers had their first child before age 20, compared with 19 percent of Hispanic fathers and 11 percent of whites. About 37 percent of black men were married when their first child was born, compared with 52 percent for Hispanic men and 77 percent for white men, according to the study.

People who got married later were more likely to stay together, with about half of the men who married as teenagers getting divorced or separated within 10 years compared with 17 percent of men who married at age 26 or older, according to the study.

The report is based on the National Survey of Family Growth, which consists of interviews of 4,928 men and 7,643 women aged 15 to 44 conducted in 2002 in their homes by trained female interviewers.

Dads' education linked to time with children