More than a fifth of working fathers would rather look after their new baby than return to work, new research has revealed.

A survey commissioned to help support the launch of the Work and Family Show, which began in London last week, saw researchers survey 1,000 parents from the databases of My Family Care and the Baby Show. It focused on the struggles of finding the right balance between their work and personal lives, with the option to work from home emerging as a potential solution for those who felt the former dominated the latter.

The study found that a fifth of men wished to stay at home rather than going back to work. However, a third of the men said that their employers offered them no flexibility in the time they could take for paternity leave.

Furthermore, the research also discovered that 80 per cent of women felt “guilty” about returning to work after having a child. The new mothers also stated that they were worried about having to leave their children in the care of others.

Much of the survey focused around the difficulty parents experience in finding the right balance between their work and personal lives.

Ben Black, director of My Family Care, the organisation responsible for the survey, said: “Today, over 2.2 million parents are not working in order to look after their family. However, more than 60 per cent are looking to return to work but do not know how to, or are scared of how they will manage to look after their children and focus on work.”

The findings of the study suggest that more flexible solutions need to be provided so that a happy medium can be found for those wishing to continue to work without having to abandon large aspects of their private life or be away from their newborns.

The option to work from home is one such solution that could allow fathers and mothers alike with the option to perform some or all of their usual work tasks without having to leave their child with someone else.