Young men flock to home care jobs in Sønderborg
Monday 28th September 2026 on 23:01 in
Denmark
Young men are showing growing interest in working in home care in Sønderborg Municipality, with one district manager receiving six unsolicited applications from young men in a single week, DR reports.
Pernille Elneff, a district manager in the municipality’s home and nursing care service, says she has increasingly heard from men aged 19 to 21 who want to work with older people. Many are in their second or third year of upper secondary school.
“It’s as if it has become cool to do something for others,” Elneff says.
Her district has 270 employees, including 25 young men. One of them is 20-year-old Wictor Wildbork Brüning, who left another job to join the service a little over six months ago.
“It makes me happy to help someone who really needs it because they can’t manage on their own,” he says.
His 21-year-old colleague Malthe Elneff started in home care while at upper secondary school and continued full time after graduating in 2024. The job changed his plans: he has decided to study physiotherapy rather than forestry.
“I like visiting older people, having a chat and helping where I can. This work gives you a different perspective on things,” he says.
Pernille Elneff says other young men have also changed career plans after working in home care, including one who is now studying nursing instead of pursuing a career as an officer, and another who chose physiotherapy over becoming a personal trainer.
Demand from young men and women is now so high that Elneff’s district cannot take on more hourly-paid staff. Hanne Marlene Dahl, a researcher in gender and care at Roskilde University, says she has not seen this trend before.
Dahl says around 30 per cent of home-care workers in Malmö are men, but notes that they have other ethnic backgrounds. The strong interest among young ethnic Danish men is new, she says.
She adds that changing ideas about masculinity may be part of the shift, and says it can help to have other men in the workplace as role models and to challenge gender stereotypes.