‘Now I want to do something interesting, something fun’. A mixed-methods study into the determinants of horizontal gender segregation at a Belgian university.

This study examines by means of quantitative and qualitative data analyses which factorsdetermine the choice for more masculine or more feminine fields of study by male and femalebachelor students. The quantitative analyses are based on data of 4758 bachelor students, ofwhich 1808 males and 2950 females, taken from STUBARO 2011-2012, a yearly online survey ofstudents of Ghent University. The qualitative data are data of 15 female and 8 male students ingender-atypical fields, gathered by means of in-depth interviews and focus groups. Familybackground only slightly explained the gendered choices. More important were the students’occupational values, as more feminine values decreased the likelihood of being in moremasculine fields of study, and vice versa. Previous educational careers appeared to be mostimportant, namely mathematics, which determined the enrolment in masculine fields somewhatmore for men than for women