It's the old myth heard time and again about how men run from responsibilities when it comes to taking care of a baby. But whoever says that is wrong! A new study has revealed that U.S. men are twice as likely as women to adopt children.

The study was released on Thursday by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, using data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.

The team of researchers followed U.S. men between the ages of 18 to 44, and compared them to women in the same segment of population. The findings of the study show that 2.3 percent of men have adopted a child, compared to just 1.1% of women. In other words, an estimated 1.3 million adoptions were made by men, and only 613,000 by women.

Obviously, researchers started wondering: Why? Why more men than women go through the adoption formalities? It appears that this is mostly a consequence of divorce. As women are more likely to keep the children, men who get a divorce may seek adoption.

American adults aged between 18 and 44 who were never tied the knot were less likely to adopt than those who were married as well.

But that's not really unexpected, said Jeff Katz, a consultant on adoption and foster care issues who lead a Rhode Island adoption agency in the past. "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," Katz stated.