In a rare interview about her personal life, Nick Clegg's wife Miriam has denied pursuing a "having it all" lifestyle, but said she wants to be able as a woman to combine family and professional life in the way men can.

With a successful career in her own right as a lawyer, marriage to the Deputy Prime Minister and three young children, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, 46, is often seen as living proof that women are able to "have it all".

But speaking to Sky News, she made clear that the decision to choose Mr Clegg as her husband and father of her children was more important to her than any lifestyle aspirations.

And she said she had been fortunate to be able "naturally" to find a way to share household chores and childcare duties with her politician husband.

Spanish-born Mrs Clegg was speaking during a visit to a Glasgow college to address female students as part of the Inspiring Women campaign to enable girls to meet successful women from all walks of life who can act as role models.

Asked whether she was able to provide the girls with an example of how women can "have it all", Mrs Clegg told Sky News: "I never understand what people mean when they say 'having it all'. I personally have never wanted to 'have it all' as a general aim. I just want to have what men have.

"Lots of men have a successful professional life - or what looks like success to them - and they fit it together with a family and that is what I want to have.

"There will be other women who don't want that. It is different for different women and different men.

"But childcare is an issue, obviously. And I think that, as (Facebook chief operating officer) Sheryl Sandberg said, the most important decision of your life is who you decide to have children with."

She made clear that the Deputy Prime Minister was ready to share housework with her, and said they tried to ensure that at least one of them was home with the children every evening.

"There are lots of couples who share more and more (housework), there are lots of men now who are fully engaged with raising the children," she said.

"If you look across society and across different countries, certainly in the Western world, women still get a very big proportion of the chores at home and I certainly know lots of women who before they leave to go to work have done half a day's work at home, and when they get home there is the other half to do.

"That doesn't happen to me. It is not an issue for people like you and I who can get help. It is an issue for those who can't get help, who don't have the money or circumstances to get help.

Asked whether she had worked out in advance with her husband what compromises they would have to make to combine two high-flying careers with a family life, she said: "Life is all about compromises.

"There is always a certain equilibrium and in my case, we found it naturally, but I do understand that there are people who plan. I'm just not very good with plans.

"We tend to share it very naturally. We make a point of one of us being home most evenings and on the whole we manage."

Mrs Clegg said she had not suffered from open sexism in her professional life, and felt it was important to give girls the self-confidence to aim high in the world of work.

"I think we have made a lot of progress, but there is still a little bit more progress to make," she said. "I think it is good for the girls to see the many options that are available for them.

"I haven't come across open discrimination against me. In terms of a little hidden sexism, I think there are lots of women who do face that."

Mrs Clegg said that when speaking to young women around the UK, "something I have really noticed that I don't see so much from boys is we get lots of questions about self-confidence".

She added: "I wonder if there is something a little bit specific to girls there, and in particular in relation to certain subjects - science subjects.

"I do think it is important to celebrate female achievement and aiming high as part of the lesson we want to give to the girls that aiming high is as good for girls as it is for boys."

Asked if she would give her sons Antonio, Alberto and Miguel different advice to that which she offers girls, Mrs Clegg said: "Not necessarily. I go on with my boys about how you have to make an effort and everything really depends on you.

"If you really want to summarise what I hope that at the end of the whole educational process they would retain, I hope it is that."