  We use the 2MASS Second Incremental Release Point Source Catalog to
investigate the spatial distribution of young stars in the Perseus, Orion A,
Orion B, and MonR2 molecular clouds. After subtracting a semi-empirical model
of the field star contamination from the observed star counts, stellar surface
density maps are used to identify compact clusters and any stellar population
found more uniformly distributed over the molecular cloud. Each cloud contains
between 2 to 7 clusters, with at least half of the cluster population found in
a single, rich cluster. In addition, a distributed stellar population is
inferred in the Orion A and MonR2 molecular clouds within the uncertainties of
the field star subtraction with a surface density between 0.013 - 0.083
arcmin**-2. The fraction of the total stellar population contained in clusters
for the nominal extinction model ranges from ~50-100% if the distributed
population is relatively young (< 10 Myr), to ~25%-70% if it is relatively old
(~100 Myr). The relatively high fraction of stars contained in clusters
regardless of the age of the distributed population, in conjunction with the
young ages generally inferred for embedded clusters in nearby molecular clouds,
indicates that a substantial fraction of the total stellar population in these
regions has formed within the past few million years in dense clusters. This
suggests that either the star formation rate in each these clouds has recently
peaked if one assumes clouds have ages > 10 Myr, or molecular clouds are
younger than typically thought if one assumes that the star formation rate has
been approximately constant in time.
