London - Being childless can hit men harder than women, according to a study.
Researchers found men are almost as likely as women to want children, and if they don’t have them they feel more isolated, depressed, angry and sad.
Cultural and family expectations were among the main influences on men’s wish to have children. For childless women it was personal desire and biological urge.
Robin Hadley, of Keele University, found that 59 percent of men and 63 percent of women said they wanted children.
Of the men, half had experienced isolation because they did not have children, compared with 27 percent of women. And while 27 percent of women had experienced depression for the same reason, the figure rose to 38 percent for men.
For anger, the figures were 25 percent of men but only 18 percent of women, while 56 per cent of men had felt sadness at being childless, compared with 43 percent of women.
Hadley questioned 27 men and 81 women, with an average age of 41, who were not parents. The research was presented at the British Sociological Association annual conference in London. - Daily Mail