Melbourne: A new study has revealed that women are indeed better at empathy than men.

After pooling data from thousands of in-depth interviews with Australians, the researchers found that women were far more likely to feel their partner's emotional pain than men, News.com.au reported.

It was found that when a negative event befalls their partner, women tend to experience an emotional effect roughly 24 per cent as large as if the event happened to them, while for men the percentage is much lower at just seven per cent.

Professor Paul Frijters of University of Queensland, who conducted the study with Dr Cindy Mervin of Griffith University, said that they looked at people who had negative shocks in their lives, such as the death of a friend, losing a job or becoming ill.

The researchers said that it's not that men are cold, emotionless fish, but we found they were much less affected by what happened to their partner.