While men’s and women’s tendency to specialize in different fields of
study is well-established worldwide, little is known about the extent
that such gender segregation is tied up with issues of social
stratification. Drawing on Finnish register-based data of over 90,000
young people, we investigate the ways in which social background is
associated with men’s and women’s gender-atypical field choices at both
the level of upper secondary vocational education and two types of
higher education. Findings from our linear probability models show that
social origin matters for entry into gender-atypical fields. However,
the direction of association varies between lower and higher levels of
education, particularly in the case of men. Comparing our findings with
expectations derived from socialization-based interpretations of social
origin and risk aversion theory, we argue that considerations related to
social class and status maintenance may be more important promotors of
gender-atypical field choice than gender-egalitarian orientations.