Men without children are 'more depressed and sad' than childless women

But when it came to men who already had children, the tables were turned. Nearly 60 percent of mothers wanted more children, compared to 55 percent of fathers

Men without children are more likely to suffer depression about the issue than their female counterparts.

British researchers found that men are almost as likely as women to want children, and they feel more isolated, depressed, angry and sad than women if they don't have them.

Childless women were more likely to cite personal desire and biological urge as major influences, compared to men. Men were more likely to cite cultural, societal and family pressures than were women.

Robin Hadley, of Keele University, found that 59 percent of men and 63 percent of women said they wanted children.

Of the men who wanted children, half had experienced isolation because they did not have any children, compared with 27 percent of women.

Thirty-eight percent of men had experienced depression because they did not have any children, compared with only 27 percent of women.

One in four men had experienced anger because they did not have any children, compared with 18 percent of women, while 56 percent of men had experienced sadness because they did not have any children, compared with 43 percent of women.

However, no men had experienced guilt because they did not have any children although 16 percent of women had.

Mr Hadley said: 'My work shows that there was a similar level of desire for parenthood among childless men and women in the survey, and that men had higher levels of anger, depression, sadness, jealousy and isolation than women.

'This challenges the common idea that women are much more likely to want to have children than men, and that they consistently experience a range of negative emotions more deeply than men if they don't have children.'

He carried out his survey of 27 men and 81 women who were not parents using an online questionnaire among people aged 20 to 66, with an average age of 41.

没有孩子的男性比没有孩子的女性更容易为此感到抑郁。

英国研究人员发现，男性对后代的渴望和女性几乎一样强烈，但男性如果没有孩子会感到更加孤立、抑郁、愤怒和悲伤。

相比男性，无儿无女的女性想要孩子的主要影响力更多地来自个人欲望和生物本能。男性则更多地表示自己受到来自文化、社会和家庭的压力。

英国基尔大学的罗宾•哈德利发现，59%的男性和63%的女性表示自己想要小孩。

那些想要孩子的男性当中，有半数因为没有子女而产生孤立感，相比之下，只有27%的女性因此感到孤立。

38%的男性曾因为自己没有孩子而感到抑郁，而无子女女性抑郁的比例仅为27%。

四分之一的男性曾因自己没有孩子而感到愤怒，而女性的这一比例为18%。56%的男性因为无子女而感到悲伤，而为此悲伤的女性比例为43%。

然而，没有男性因为自己没有生育小孩而感觉内疚，但为此感到内疚的女性占了16%。

哈德利说：“我的研究工作显示，调查中无子女的男性和女性想当父母的渴望一样强烈，但是男性的愤怒、抑郁、悲伤、嫉妒和孤立情绪比女性更多。

“人们普遍认为，女人比男人更想要小孩，而且如果没有孩子，女性持续体验到的各种负面情绪比男性程度更深。这一研究挑战了这一观点。”

他用网上问卷的形式调查了无儿无女的27名男性和81名女性，这些人的年龄在20岁到66岁之间，平均年龄为41岁。