The average age of first-time mothers

From the New York Times:

... a new analysis of four decades of births shows that the age that women become mothers varies significantly by geography and education... First-time mothers are older in big cities and on the coasts, and younger in rural areas and in the Great Plains and the South...

The difference in when women start families cuts along many of the same lines that divide the country in other ways, and the biggest one is education. Women with college degrees have children an average of seven years later than those without — and often use the years in between to finish school and build their careers and incomes...

Young mothers are more likely to be conservative and religious, to value traditional gender roles and to reject abortion. Older mothers tend to be liberal, and to split breadwinning and caregiving responsibilities more equally with men, they found...

Being a young mother has benefits, she said: “I still have a lot of energy to deal with them, and when they get older, I won’t be too old.”

Much more discussion at the link.  The map embedded above is not interactive; the one at the link is.  Also, these two graphs are instructive: