A new study contends that cheap Chinese imports and the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has contributed to a decline in marriage rates that other kinds of employment may not fully make up for.

The intriguing new study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, examines how trade shocks to manufacturing jobs in the U.S. affect marriage rates, fertility, and childhood poverty.

The results are at times surprising, and may bolster the case that the offshoring of manufacturing jobs has damaged the traditional social fabric of American life.

The study asserts that for every one percent increase in Chinese imports, the share of women who are married decreases by about 1.3 percent. As well, birth rates drop about four percent, and child poverty rates increase by a whopping 12 percent.

Are shuttered factories shutting down marriage rates? A new study suggests that cheap Chinese imports have reduced marriages, but increased single parenthood and child poverty

On the left, data show that manufacturing employment rates are correlated with higher marriage rates. Non-manufacturing employment rates (right) correlate with fewer marriages

First, the study's authors use data from across the U.S. to show that the more people in the workforce are employed in manufacturing, the generally higher the marriage rate.

Conversely, the more people who are employed in non-manufacturing jobs, the generally lower the marriage rate, authors David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson write in their study titled 'When Work Disappears.'

The economists put forward a potentially uncomfortable, but fascinating, explanation for this phenomenon: trade shocks to manufacturing jobs have reduced the wage gap between men and women.

'Shocks that compress the gender earnings differential in a local market reduce the attractiveness of men as potential spouses, thus reducing fertility and especially marriage rates,' they write. And 'male manufacturing jobs earn higher industry wage premia than female manufacturing jobs.'

In other words, women are more likely to marry when there are plenty of single men around who earn more money than they do, and manufacturing jobs tend to employ more men and pay them higher wages than women.

The study's authors find the converse is true: when wages are more equal between the genders, fewer women marry or have children, though a higher percentage of those who do have children have them out of wedlock.

'CHINA SHOCK' BY THE NUMBERS In the U.S., every one percent increase in Chinese import penetration: Decreases the share of women who are currently married by about 1.3 percent Lowers the birth rate among women age 20-39 by four percent Increases the share of children living in poverty by 12 percent Source: When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline And The Falling Marriage-Market Value Of Men Advertisement

Incredibly, the data showed that negative shocks to male employment drove 'almost the entirety' of increases in child poverty, while blows to the female job market had 'no statistically or economically significant effect on child poverty.'

This could be because when women's wages take a hit, they tend to get married more often and have fewer children overall, reducing the number of children in poor households.

When young men are hit in the job market though, women and children are disadvantaged in several ways, the study suggests: the teen and unmarried pregnancy rate goes up, and a higher share of married mothers are married to low-earning men.

The U.S. marriage rate peaked around 1949, when Census data shows that about 78 percent of households were married, versus roughly 48 percent today.

Although there are plenty of factors that might have contributed to that steep drop off, including changes in culture and demographics, this new scholarship suggests that strides in income equality may have unwittingly plaid a role.

And though automation may destroy more manufacturing jobs that trade deals will over the coming decades, these researchers find that the 'China shock' did indeed kill off some manufacturing jobs, and in turn, perhaps, some happy marriages.