A few years ago Apple and Facebook introduced an employee benefit that made headlines — egg freezing.
Just so everyone understands what it is — the scientific name is Oocyte Cryopreservation. It allows women to freeze and store their eggs until they want to start their families. Egg freezing effectively suspends the ticking of a woman’s biological clock.
Although egg freezing has been available in the U.S. for over a decade, it has mostly been used with cancer patients facing infertility from the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
Facebook and Apple now pay $20,000 for the procedure to any female employee who wants it. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase also offer it but have kept it very low key. Microsoft offers a variation of it. No doubt there are other companies.
The fact is that the years when women dedicate time and energy to their educations and careers are also the time of peak fertility. The career battle is most intense when employees are in their 20’s and 30’s. Having a high-powered career and children at that age is a very hard thing for women to do. Proponents therefore say that by offering this benefit, companies are investing in women and supporting them in carving out the lives they want. They are, in effect, helping to level the playing field.
The idea that there might be a way for women to build their careers and their personal lives on a timetable of their own choice is so intriguing that single women are filling informational sessions at clinics and holding “Let’s Chill” egg freezing “parties” to hear about it.
But let’s look at the flip side of this. After all there’s something a little creepy about an employer taking an interest in your ovaries. It blurs the line between professional and private life.
In the future could having this benefit negatively affect those females who choose not to freeze their eggs and instead have children in their 20’s or 30’s? Could they be viewed as not as committed to their jobs or as loyal to the company as their egg-freezing colleagues? Could they be less likely to be considered for promotion? Would companies ever say: “We offered you the benefit, so why aren’t you taking advantage of it? Don’t tell me that you want to have a child right now. That is what we have the egg freezing plan for.”
Reasons to be cynical
In typical high tech, engineer fashion Facebook and Apple believe there must be a solution to every problem if only the right “code” can be found. High tech employers are already doing a lot to ensure that their workforce’s primary focus is on productivity — not distractions. And having babies is definitely a distraction. They provide free haircuts, on-site medical centers, dry cleaners and shuttle buses to take employees to/from work. Facebook is even building an apartment complex for employees within biking distance to encourage minimal time away from work. So is egg freezing just another way to remove a distraction?
Reasons not to be cynical
In all fairness Facebook and Apple also offer female employees help when they leave work in favor of having children. Facebook gives new parents (male or female) four months of paid leave. They also give them $4,000 in “baby cash.” In addition, they subsidize day care when a mother returns to work. Apple offers new parents 18 weeks of paid leave and up to 6 weeks unpaid.
Benefits are social indicators. They reveal what we value, as a culture. While being included as a health benefit is new and may just be part of Silicon Valley’s perks arms race, egg-freezing could eventually become a cultural norm.
What’s next? Well, how about vasectomies for young male employees that can be reversed once they hit a pay level of $100,000 or age 40? Hmmm . . . something tells me a benefit like that wouldn’t be received with the same amount of enthusiasm.
What do you think about all of this? Let’s hear from our female readership!
This article originally published on Compensation Café.
