Nothing surprising here.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Women who have children outside of marriage are less likely than other single women to marry, and when they do marry, their husbands tend to be less well-matched, according to a new study.

The results show that the odds that unwed mothers marry rather than cohabit are about 30 percent lower than those of childless single women.

When they do marry, mothers are more likely to have husbands who are significantly older and less educated than those of childless women.

“It's more difficult for unwed mothers to get married, and if they do, they tend to not marry well,” said Zhenchao Qian, co-author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

The results suggest that efforts by the federal government and states to promote marriage among young, poor Americans need to do more to prevent out-of-wedlock childbearing, Qian said. He conducted the study with Leanna Mellott, graduate student in sociology at Ohio State, and Daniel Lichter, professor at Cornell University .

I bet those single childless women are seen as better catches on average even before considering their lack of children. Part of their poorer marriage prospects stem from the fact that women with illegitimate children tend to be dumber, less educated, and lower wage earners on average. Still, most men see existing children as a liability when looking at a single women. So these results are at least partially due to that simple fact.

For example, the study showed that single mothers were less likely than childless women to marry a man with at least some college education. That suggests unwed mothers are unlikely to improve their economic prospects through marriage, she said, because potential husbands are less likely to have opportunities for good-paying jobs.

That is not entirely true. Even if their husband earns low wages those wages would be added to the wages of the woman. Also, a second parent in the household would provide extra labor for child care so that each parent could more easily manage to go to work and still have the kids looked after. Sometimes that is accomplished by having the two parents work different times of the day and days of the week.

In addition, a white woman who had children outside of marriage was more likely to marry a man who was significantly older – at least six years older – than she. That wasn't the case for Black and Hispanic women, but only because they were less likely than whites to be married at all, Qian said.

“Our analysis suggests that Blacks and Hispanics may be less likely to marry or cohabit because they face shortages of potential spouses,” he said. “If they had been married or living with someone, they would likely have husbands or partners much older than themselves.”

Of course, part of the problem for most of these women who have children out of wedlock is that even if they didn't have illegitimate babies their marital prospects would still be bleak. Still, illegitimate children do make their lives and their prospects even poorer.

The United States as a whole would be much better off in the long run if reproduction outside of marriage became as stigmatized and punished as it used to be in the early half of the 20th century. We all pay for illegitimate births in higher taxes, higher crime, and in other ways. We'd be better off if single women had fewer children and had those children much later. At the same time, we'd be better off of smarter married women had more children. This sort of talk is taboo in the mainstream media. But that taboo does not make the facts any less true.