The Debate on Egg Freezing as a Work Perk
"... [B]y paying for women to delay pregnancy, are employers helping them achieve [a work-life balance] — or avoiding policies that experts agree would greatly help solve the problem, like paid family leave, child care and flexible work arrangements?
"... [W]orkplaces could be seen as paying women to put off childbearing. Women who choose to have babies earlier could be stigmatized as uncommitted to their careers. Just as tech company benefits like free food and dry cleaning serve to keep employees at the office longer, so could egg freezing, by delaying maternity leave and child-care responsibilities."
The process is also not full-proof. In the words of Dr. Marcelle Cedars, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of California, San Francisco: "it’s not a guarantee; it’s not a baby in the freezer.”
Additionally, "[t]here are class and race divides in egg freezing. A planned pregnancy later in life is much more realistic for highly educated, high-income women, according to June Carbone and Naomi Cahn, law professors who write about the gender and class divide in reproduction — in other words, the kind of people who work at Facebook and Apple. Working-class women are less likely to be able to afford egg freezing; or to be employed during pregnancy; or to receive paid maternity leave."
"If other white-collar companies follow tech’s lead in offering egg freezing, as they have with other benefits that started in Silicon Valley, that divide could deepen as more women consider the opportunity, or fraught message, when deciding when to start a family."
The New York Times, October 14, 2014: "Egg Freezing as a Work Benefit? Some Women See Darker Message," by Claire Cain Miller
Harvard Law & Policy Review, August 2014: "Using Egg Freezing to Extend the Biological Clock: Fertility Insurance or False Hope?," by Seema Mohapatra (pages, PDF)
Those calling the egg-freezing perk a good thing say it's "another option for women struggling to deal with the reality that their ideal childbearing years can conflict with crucial career-building years. It’s also a way for technology firms to support female employees, something that’s especially welcome given Silicon Valley’s infamously male-dominated workforce. All the better if such efforts allow those companies to lure new talent as well."
"Egg freezing is an expensive endeavor.... An egg freezing payment program is no small company perk."
"The news could help spur even more companies to offer such perks, and ultimately, it could lead to greater cultural acceptance of egg freezing."
Wired, October 14, 2014: "Apple and Facebook Pay for Female Employees to Freeze Eggs," by Davey Alba
