Companies like Apple and Facebook are now paying for their female employees to freeze their eggs. Some say it’s a perk for women who want to wait to have kids, but critics say it’s a short-term solution to a bigger problem of balancing work and family.
Pichi Chuang / Reuters
Earlier this week, NBC reported that Facebook and Apple were paying for their female employees to freeze their eggs so that, if they choose to do so, they can work through their peak childbearing years and have children later in their career when they are presumably more financially stable.
This policy "can help women be more productive human beings," according to Extend Fertility, a company that offers and promotes egg freezing nationwide. "Women are making the proactive decision to freeze their eggs at a younger age, and the choice is more one of empowerment than 'this is my last chance.'"
But some said this week that they see the policy has as a short-term solution rather than a structural improvement to accommodate female workers and families.
"What's going to be structurally different at the workplace to make the women want to have kids while at the company?" Seema Mohapatra, a health care law and bioethics expert, said to BuzzFeed News. "There's no indication that women who have children later on at the companies will be given choices that help them more successfully have a career and raise a family concurrently."
Facebook does not see this policy as one that pressures women to work through their childbearing years, however, but rather one elected benefit among many.
Those who want to have children in their twenties or early thirties can still do so, and will receive perks that include a four-month parental leave for mothers and fathers, subsidized daycare, flexible work schedules and the option to work remotely, unlimited sick days, and $4,000 "baby cash" for each child born or adopted, the company told BuzzFeed News.
The company put the egg-freezing policy into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, as part of a larger surrogacy and fertility benefit plan that was the result of employees requesting more options for family planning, Facebook said. The policy covers men and LGBT families as well offering surrogacy agency fees, sperm donation or sperm retrieval, and court, legal, and attorney's fees, among other costs.
Mohapatra said that Facebook and Apple are not the companies "to be cynical about."
Apple store in Beijing
Jason Lee / Reuters
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