By 2030 young Africans will constitute 42% of the world's youth. Ensuring they realize their full potential is a top priority. Effective policy design depends on understanding the determinants of their occupational choices.

Through a survey with young men and women in urban Uganda, we highlight the role of information, expectations and preferences. First, we show that randomly providing earnings information reduces overoptimistic expectations about pecuniary factors, especially for women, while has a limited impact on expectations about non-pecuniary factors. Second, we estimate a model of occupational choice, and find that, although earning prospects are relevant, preferences for family approval are the major determinant of occupational choice. In a final step, we use expectations and preferences to simulate the effects of some policy experiments on occupational sorting by gender.