According to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National for Health Statistics, 2.3 % of men aged 18 to 44 had adopted children compared to 1.1% of women in that age.

The result of the report contradicts an American myth saying that the childless couples or the women who want to see more children in the house seek adoption, study author Jo Jones, PhD, a statistician for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics said.

The study found men adopt at twice the rate women do, but men who adopt are more likely to have fathered a child than men who don’t adopt. As for women, the situation is rather different. Those who have never had a child are more likely to adopt a child than those who have given birth.

The study used data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. However, it is the first time the CDC collected adoption data from men.

“More women get custody of children in divorce cases, so after a divorce the mom is living with her kids and she meets a man, and they get married, and he adopts her children,” Jeff Katz, a consultant on adoption and foster care issues told the Associated Press.

Overall, nearly 1.3 million men had adopted a child, compared with an estimated 613,000 women.

The report estimated 100,000 single women and 73,000 single men had adopted a child.

A total of 50,000 children are adopted through foster care annually in the United States.