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Discussion Groups => News Flash => Topic started by: mensfe_admin on 2013-09-27 16:17

Title: Men without children are more depressed and sad than childless women
Post by: mensfe_admin on 2013-09-27 16:17
Men without children are 'more depressed and sad' than childless women
•   Men are almost as likely as women to want children, say British researchers
•   Also feel more isolated, depressed and angry if they don't have them 
•   Main reasons men want children are 'cultural' and due to family pressures
•   For women, it is more about personal desire and biological urge
By Anna Hodgekiss
PUBLISHED: 00:02, 3 April 2013 | UPDATED: 00:28, 3 April 2013
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.
The research, due to be presented at the British Sociological Association annual conference in London today, also found that the influences on men and women who wanted to have children varied.
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 per cent of men and 63 per cent 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 per cent of women.
Thirty-eight per cent of men had experienced depression because they did not have any children, compared with only 27 per cent of women.
One in four men had experienced anger because they did not have any children, compared with 18 per cent of women, while 56 per cent of men had experienced sadness because they did not have any children, compared with 43 per cent of women.
However, no men had experienced guilt because they did not have any children although 16 per cent of women had.
Mr Hadley said: 'There is very little research on the desire for fatherhood among men.
'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 and similar level of yearning.
'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.
But when it came to men who already had children, the tables were turned. Nearly 60 per cent of mothers wanted more children, compared to 55 per cent of fathers
Just over 80 per cent were white British, 69 per cent had degrees, 69 per cent worked full-time and 90 per cent were heterosexual.
But when it came to men who already had children, the tables were turned.
Mr Hadley also surveyed another 125 men and women who already had children to find out whether they wanted more. He found that 59 per cent of mothers wanted more children, compared to 55 per cent of fathers.
He said the women who wanted more children, when they thought about not being able to have them, had higher levels of anger, depression, guilt, isolation, sadness and yearning than men.
In research carried out since his study, Mr Hadley has interviewed involuntary childless men.
Among them was Russell who told him: 'I'm 55, the light's been getting dimmer and dimmer and dimmer of me ever being a father, to the point now where it's not going to happen.'
George, 60, said: 'If you don't have children or grandchildren then that dimension of your life is missing.'
Some men admitted that shyness was a factor in not developing relationships that led to children