The United States has none of the nationwide public policies that make the work-family juggle easier in other countries, like paid family leave or public preschool.

Norms about what men are supposed to do also have an effect, researchers say — starting in childhood, when boys do fewer chores than girls do. Masculinity is strongly tied to earning an income and avoiding things that are considered feminine. Studies have shown that men can feel threatened if their wives earn more than them, and that to compensate, men who feel this way might do even less housework.

“To be a good man means to be employed,” said Sarah Thébaud, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “That doesn’t mean they don’t want to be involved — they do. But the issue is we’re pushing up against these prescriptive beliefs about gender.”

The authors of the new sociology study suggested another explanation: economic uncertainty. Many young people face unstable employment, student debt and rising housing and child care costs. Perhaps young families are open to women’s equality outside the home because they need a second income, they said, but their attitudes about gender roles haven’t actually evolved as much.

Or, they might want a parent at home with young children because they embrace intensive parenting. It is also driven by financial concerns — that it’s no longer a safe bet that children will do as well as their parents. That could explain why men’s time doing child care has increased more than their time doing housework, the researchers said.

Their study, which was published in the journal Sociological Science, was based on a national survey called Monitoring the Future, administered each year to high school seniors. The researchers analyzed data from 1976 to 2014, including 75,573 12th graders, between 2,000 and 4,000 a year. They focused on a question asking respondents to imagine a future in which they were married (it assumed to someone of the opposite sex) with children of preschool age, and to rate various work and child care arrangements.

Across all survey years, the largest share of respondents said the most desirable arrangement was men working full time and women staying home. In 2014, 11 percent said both parents working full time was most desirable, up from 4 percent in 1976. A majority said a father staying home was unacceptable.