Women are significantly more likely than men to want children so they have someone to nurture, while for men it is the need to pass on their genes that is the primary driving force behind starting a family.

An analysis of the reasons people decide to have children has also found that men are more likely to see offspring as an extension of themselves, while women consider them as an object of maternal desire.

Peter Marsh, a director at the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford and author of the report, said that social, cultural and economic upheavals in the past 400 years appeared to have had little effect on people’s perceptions of biological destiny. “Here we are expressing very basic needs and desires which are probably very little different to those people held 400 years ago,” Dr Marsh, a chartered psychologist, said.

Where change had occurred, however, was in a growing tendency among this generation of parents to worry whether their parenting skills were adequate. This was the No 1 concern about having children, cited by more than 50 per cent of adults interviewed. “Being a parent is now regarded as problematic and something for people to fret about,” Dr Marsh said. He blamed the proliferation of parenting books and television programmes for undermining parents’ confidence.

For Suzanne Hammerton, 33, the decision to have a baby stemmed from a desire “to give love” , while for her husband Neil, 35, the driving force was an urge “to pass something on”.

The couple, from Surrey, have a daughter, Isabella, 2.

Mrs Hammerton, who works in publishing, said she had always assumed she would have children although it was not until she turned 30 that she began to consider it seriously. “The second I hit 30 this sudden desire to have a child kicked in,” she said. “I felt that it was time to teach rather than to learn.”

Mr Hammerton, who runs an e-mail filtering business, said he experienced no paternal urges before he had a child, but developed a desire to pass on his experience.

The study, based on a survey of 2,000 adults, two focus groups of nine people each and interviews with 35 individuals, was commissioned by the National Gamete Donation Trust, a charity which backs egg, sperm and embryo donation.

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