Do men and women differ in their desire to have children? I was reading the comments of the following article on paternal health and birth defects. Someone made the following comment.


  The other thing is that mens interest in being a father is nowhere
  near a high priority as women's is to be a mother.


While this seemed like uninformed opinion, it seemed to raise an interesting question.


Is there any scientific empirical evidence to suggest that males and females differ in their desire to have children?
Caveats

Even when the degree of men's and women's desires to have children are forced by study parameters into yes/no pigeonholes, there are very few studies, and the results are arguably inconclusive. Also, men's and women's rates of desire to have children are continuously shifting, and thus the answer may change over time. Finally, the studies have been limited to the United States and/or the United Kingdom.

Findings


If you're wondering specifically about single men and women who don't yet have any children, this should help: In 2011, the website Match.com commissioned a study by SUNY Binghamton to answer your question and more. They found that 24% of the men and 15% of the women in the study want to have children, and "men in every age group are more eager than women to have children."
On the flip side, there has been at least one study of men and women who want NOT to have children, and the men in the study were more likely than the women to want to remain childless. This seems to contradict the aforementioned study in which more men than women want children... until you consider the third group -- ambivalent men and women.
According to McAllister, ambivalent women outnumber ambivalent men.


Conclusion?

A tentative conclusion could be that men are more decisive, outnumbering women in both categories -- wanting to have and wanting NOT to have children. But, more research is required to reliably answer your question, and by then the answer may have changed.

References


  
  Gore, D.L. (2002) I Don’t Want Any Children... Ever: 
  Gender Differences in Voluntary Childlessness in the US, 2002 [pdf]
  McAllister, F. and Clarke, L. (1998) Choosing Childlessness. London: Family Policy StudiesCentre.