The work in municipal elderly care shows that if a job becomes too strongly gender coded as female, it becomes extremely difficult to change. The work tends to remain associated with the low status it was assigned from the beginning, and ultimately, there is no available workforce. This poses a challenge at a time when the number of citizens in Sweden is growing older and increasingly reliant on assistance and care. Economic historical research highlighted this kind of problems already in the 1970s, but then it pointed out the risks of having overly gender-coded tasks in the industry, since it led to a separation of female and male jobs and effected both status and salary. These gender-coded tasks reinforced both vertical and horizontal, resulting in women being excluded from certain job opportunities. Now it happens in the Swedish elderly care, and an important and emerging question is this: who will care for and what kind of care will be provided to the elderly in the future?