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Marriage, it is sometimes argued, is a feminist institution, put in place to offer legal protection to women from being abandoned by men who wish to sow their seed in ever greener pastures. It's a slightly antique (and misandrous) view, formulated at a time when home and hearth were a woman's horizons. And now a new study suggests that it is often women, rather than men, who view marriage as a trap.

In a survey of 61 cohabiting couples aged 18 to 36 in Columbus, Ohio, researchers from Cornell and the University of Central Oklahoma found that women, particularly lower-income women, were concerned about being trapped in marriage and having no way out if things went awry. They also found that working-class couples were less likely than wealthier couples to consider cohabitation as a step toward a more formal commitment. Rather, they tended to view marriage as "just a piece of paper."

The survey respondents further revealed that they had serious concerns about divorce: about 67% of them said they were worried about the social, emotional and economic fallout of divorce. The researchers suggest that this is one of the reasons that the couples had chosen to live together rather than get married. While that sounds a little bit like eating only the shrimp appetizers for fear the main dish will give you food poisoning, these young couples tended to think the legal and financial upheaval caused by a divorce wasn't worth the risk.

The study, which was published in December's Journal of Family Relations, is one of several in recent weeks to examine the diminishing rate of marriage in the United States. According to a Pew Research Center analysis last week, just over half of adult Americans are currently married, the lowest rate in decades. Some of the rollback is because people are getting married later, and some of it is because cohabitation rates are rising. The new study suggests that divorce is also a very real presence in couple's minds.

Divorce is not an equal-opportunity specter, however. Middle-class couples were less spooked by it — and by marriage — than low-income couples. For poorer women who tended to feel that marriage was a trap, there were fears that legal union would lead to extra work and responsibilities on their part, without any additional benefits. "Middle-class respondents disproportionately asserted that marriage meant commitment, something they viewed as a positive feature of the institution," the authors write. "When working-class women referenced commitment, on the other hand, they did not view it in a particularly positive light."

For female partners, the benefits to marriage were slimmer — they would get an extra person to look after but not an extra provider. Since working-class women are often the main breadwinners, they were more likely to worry that marriages would be harder and costly to exit. So they preferred to regard their relationship as impermanent. And although working-class men have seen their real earnings drop over the years, studies have shown, they still hold quite rigid views on what mens' and womens' roles are in the home.

Several studies have shown that higher income couples use cohabitation as a runway to lifting off to married life, while lower income couples are more likely to taxi around the cohabitation tarmac. This could be because low-income couples often lack the financial stability that helps them feel secure enough to get married. It could also be because their limited employment prospects means they may have to move away from each other to find work.

In some cases financial circumstances brought about the cohabitation rather than an intention to build a life together. This study suggests that it's not that people no longer want to get married; they just want to get married once.

• Belinda Luscombe