Facebook, Apple pay for women to freeze eggs

FORGET bonuses or extra leave, Facebook and Apple are offering female employees a life-changing perk: to cover the cost of egg freezing.

Facebook, Apple pay for egg freezing

FORGET bonuses or extra leave, Facebook and Apple are offering female employees a life-changing perk: to cover the cost of egg freezing.

Facebook has already started covering the procedure, which costs about $US10,000 ($11,400) per round, and Apple will commence in January, NBC News reports.

Egg freezing allows women to delay motherhood and focus on building their careers while their healthy eggs are in storage.

Egg freezing advocate Brigitte Adams told NBC News the offer shows the Silicon Valley giants are investing in women and supporting their lifestyle choices.

But critics say it’s a ploy to entice women to sell their souls to their employer.

Finally a solution to the work-life balance problem: Facebook & Apple Offer Egg-Freezing So Women Never Stop Working. http://t.co/8tEIfL9KkZ

— Chelsea Pumpkinspice (@chelscore) October 14, 2014

The egg-freezing perk enforces Silicon Valley's obsessive work mentality AND gender progress--see we can have it all http://t.co/plRQIVZjNR

— Nitasha Tiku (@nitashatiku) October 14, 2014

“Would potential female associates welcome this option knowing that they can work hard early on and still reproduce, if they so desire, later on?” asked Glenn Cohen, co-director of Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, wrote in a blog last year.

“Or would they take this as a signal that the firm thinks that working there as an associate and pregnancy are incompatible?”

News of the egg freezing benefit is the latest example of Silicon Valley companies offering lifestyle-related deals to hold on to staff (and keep them working).

Apple and Facebook, locked in a so-called “perks arms race”, offer fertility treatment and adoption benefits, while Facebook gives new parents $US4,000 in untied “baby cash”. Other firms have also begun to offer benefits for transgender employees.

Read more at NBC News.