entrepreneurs exhibit less confidence in their skill sets and ability to take risks than men. Conversely, research in Africa (for instance Bardasi and Getahun, 2008) and elsewhere (Brush, 1992) found that women are often constrained by a range of factors, including limited access to finance and human capital development opportunities, which points more to a constraint‐driven hypothesis.

In this study, we seek to examine the role of a range of factors that may hinder or help women entrepreneurs to enter male dominated sectors. We do this in the context of Uganda, which shows the concentration pattern that the studies above refer to: only 6 percent of women operate in male‐ dominated sectors<sup>5</sup> (where over 75 percent of enterprises are male‐owned),<sup>6</sup> while 34 percent of men have businesses in those industries (UBOS, 2006). Specifically, we break the potential factors explaining the entry into male dominated sectors into three (potentially overlapping) groups.

First, we look at whether the crossover entrepreneurs (women who own businesses in male‐ dominated industries) are above average in their entrepreneurial skill or abilities. Second, we examine the possibility that their psychosocial development explains their ability to overcome occupational segregation. Finally, as credit and human capital constraints are often cited as factors that hold back women’s business no matter which sector they are in, we examine the possibility that the ability to overcome these constraints might explain their presence in these non‐traditional sectors.

We use a mixed methods approach to examine these potential explanations. To start with, we find that women who cross over into male‐dominated sectors make as much as men, and more than women who stay in female‐dominated sectors. But this fact is unknown to a majority of the women who do not cross over, suggesting information is a key initial hurdle to crossing over. The main factors that seem to be associated with crossing over are psychosocial ‐‐ particularly the influence of male role models and exposure to the sector from family and friends. These factors are likely to be critical in helping the crossover women circumvent or overcome the norms that undergird occupational segregation.

> 5 While in the literature male‐dominated sectors are often defined as those where more than 50 percent of the firms are male‐owned (over‐representation), in this study we focused on enterprises where male‐domination is over 75 percent, because the over‐representation could just be a reflection of the specific sample, which is often not representative of the population – eg: the WB/IFC Enterprise Surveys are often not representative of the population of firms in the country in the absence of a solid census of firms. While these classifications at the margin could potentially average out in a quantitative analysis, they matter considerably when looking at a qualitative assessment where perceptions may be different than the sample dynamics.

> 6 Of course, if more women were to operate in those sectors, they would cease to be male‐dominated, but currently, and through time and across countries, the pattern is prevalent, and hence important to analyze.

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