The bad economy President Obama is responsible for — and which Hillary Clinton would no doubt continue if elected — is resulting in key changes to society and the tradition of marriage.

Many millennials no longer trust that they can provide for a family — but they aren’t putting off having kids.

“They don’t foresee having the kinds of well-paying careers to support a marriage and a family,” said one sociologist.

A groundbreaking study led by Johns Hopkins University sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin is the first to trace how the current income gap is affecting millennials’ decisions about starting a family.

The greater the income inequality in an area, the less likely younger couples are to marry before having their first baby, the study concluded. Cherlin’s research appears in the August issue of the American Sociological Review.

The scarcity of certain types of jobs — a result of rising income equality and a disappearing middle class — is a key factor in the millennial penchant for saying “I don’t” to a walk down the aisle.

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“Does income inequality affect a young adult’s decision about getting married and starting a family?” Cherlin, the Benjamin H. Griswold III Professor of Public Policy in the Krieger School of Arts and Science, said in an interview with HUB, a Johns Hopkins University online publication.

“We think the answer is ‘Yes’ for those who don’t graduate from college,” he said. “Places with higher income inequality have fewer good jobs for those young adults. They don’t foresee ever having the kinds of well-paying careers that could support a marriage and a family. But they are unwilling to forgo having children. So with good jobs in limited supply and successful marriage looking unlikely, young women and men without college degrees may go ahead and have a child without marrying first.”

One California clinical psychologist hopes that no matter what the economy, millennials will think long and hard about the benefits of marriage.

“Regarding having babies while skipping marriage, millennials will have ‘thrown the baby out with the bath water’ — no pun intended,” Dr. Shoshana Bennett told LifeZette. “This is, unfortunately, faulty — not progressive — thinking. Avoiding certain major commitments when faced with economic uncertainty is understandable and intelligent, but marriage is not one of them.”

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“Millennials should know it is simply an illusion to think this will somehow protect them, their mates, or their children,” Bennett continued. “Maybe buying a trailer or a tiny house as opposed to incurring a huge mortgage is an innovative solution when there’s economic uncertainty, but discarding marriage — the piece that could actually help ensure a better future for themselves and for their children — makes no sense.”

Cherlin and fellow researchers found that those areas with high levels of income inequality have a shortage of jobs available in the middle of the job market. Those are the jobs that Americans without college degrees should be filling, such as factory work, medical secretarial jobs, or heating and refrigeration mechanics positions.

The wages for these types of jobs can provide a living and keep a family out of poverty, but due to the disappearing middle class they’re as rare as a $2 bill.

“To be a good prospect as a husband, you have to have steady earnings,” Cherlin noted. “White Americans without college degrees are doing worse than their parents did. Black Americans and Hispanics are doing better than their parents. But very few of any demographic without a college degree are good providers. This has led to short-term relationships that produce children but don’t last.”

Related: Millennials Set to Inherit Devastated Economy

GOP candidate Donald Trump indicated in a speech in Detroit Monday that he will lower marginal tax rates for large and small businesses and all income classes, thus helping the middle class. He also proposed a hike in the standard deduction for families, and special deductions for child care, too. All of these polices will help the middle class. Trump’s plan will generate the formation of new businesses, more jobs and economic growth, which leads to higher wages.

In their research, Cherlin’s team studied 9,000 millennials from 1997, when they were 12 to 16 years old, up until 2011, when they were 26 to 31, HUB reported. By the end of the research study, 53 percent of the women and 41 percent of the men reported having had at least one child — and 59 percent of those births were outside of marriage.

“Millennials believe being married is optional. But having a child is mandatory,” said one sociologist.

Most of the first children born outside of marriage were to women and men who didn’t have a college degree. They would normally fill those middle-of-the-market jobs.

The researchers then matched that information about birth and marriage with census data on income and employment, HUB said. They found that unmarried men and women without children who lived in counties with greater household income inequality and fewer middle market jobs available were less likely to marry before having a child. In fact, women who lived in an area with high inequality had 15 to 27 percent lower odds of marrying before having a first child than did women who lived in an area with low inequality.

Related: Millennials See Power in Laziness

The poor economy and disappearing middle class are having profound effects on family structure. “For many young adults, having a child is still one of the most satisfying experiences they can imagine. And if there’s nothing else for a young person to look forward to, at least they can do that,” Cherlin said.

“They believe that being married is optional. But having a child is mandatory.”