Why are there so few women in information technology? Assessing the role of personality in career choices q Joshua L. Rosenbloom a, * , Ronald A. Ash b , Brandon Dupont c , LeAnne Coder d a University of Kansas and NBER, Department of Economics, 1460 Jayhawk Blvd, Snow Hall, Room 436, Lawrence, KS 66045, United States b University of Kansas c Western Washington University d Western Kentucky University Received 15 May 2007; received in revised form 25 September 2007; accepted 27 September 2007 Available online 6 October 2007 Abstract Despite increases in female labor force participation, women remain substantially under repre- sented in most scientific and technical fields. The small number of women in engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science and other similar fields has variously been attributed to discrimination, differences in ability or choice. This paper uses a unique data set containing information on voca- tional interests to examine the determinants of entry in to Information Technology occupations. We show that men and women differ systematically in their interests, and that these differences can account for an economically and statistically large fraction of the occupational gender gap. Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 0167-4870/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2007.09.005 q This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0204464. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 785 864 7448; fax: +1 785 864 5270. E-mail address: jrosenbloom@ku.edu (J.L. Rosenbloom). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Economic Psychology 29 (2008) 543–554 www.elsevier.com/locate/joep