In the global race for talent, companies are looking for new ways to attract and retain the best employees.
If you are lucky enough to be an in-demand worker, the benefits offered to you can be vast and varied. In an attempt to keep you motivated, you are likely to company I offer you a series of advantagessuch as training grants or transportation costs.
The Big tech, along with banks and pharmaceuticalsare ahead when it comes to persuasion. The hunger for talent, combined with stellar benefits, contributes greatly to generosity.
Already in 2014, Apple and Facebook made headlines by becoming the first major US employers to announce the egg freezing coverage for staff.
“We continue to expand our benefits for women, with a new policy of extended maternity leavealong with cryopreservation and egg storage as part of our extensive support forinfertility treatments“Apple said at the time.
Collecting and freezing a woman’s eggs allows them to be preserved from aging outside the body, which It means that children can be conceived at an older age. When a woman decides to unfreeze her eggs, they can be fertilised in a laboratory. The hope is that at least one of the so-called “zygotes” will develop into an embryo, although there is no guarantee of success.
Prevalence of egg freezing benefits
According to Apple, offering a Coverage of up to $20,000 (18,334 euros) “would empower” employees “to do the best work of their lives.” Whether true or not, Apple’s announcement sparked a flood of companies offering similar egg freezing services, including Google, Yahoo and Netflix.
According to the consulting firm Mercer, the number of large American companies that offer coverage for the non-medical egg freezing grew to 19% in 2023. That figure is up from 16% in 2022.
In In Europe, these benefits are less common.although that doesn’t mean they aren’t available. In the UK, companies such as Natwest bank, energy provider Centrica and law firms Clifford Chance and Cooley offer financial help to staff undergoing fertility treatment.
This can relieve a heavy financial burdenespecially since non-medical egg freezing is rarely offered on the UK’s National Health Service.
According to the British fertility regulator, the HFEA, the entire process of freezing and thawing eggs It costs an average of between 7,000 and 8,000 pounds (more than 8,300 euros)For women who require more egg collection cycles, this total may be higher.
The fertility benefits Nor are they limited to English-speaking countries. Swissthe pharmaceutical company Merck financially supports employees who want to freeze their eggs, and the Swedish music giant Spotify also has a similar policy.
“Since 2021, all full-time Spotify employees worldwide are eligible for company benefits for raising a family,” Katarina Berg, Spotify’s director of human resources, told Euronews.
This grant can be used for in vitro fertilizationdonor services, adoptionfertility preservation or fertility assessments and education, she explained. The amount varies from country to country, but is enough to cover “several IVF cycles.”
Hopes of delaying parenthood?
Although companies that offer egg freezing – such as Spotify – can also provide generous parental permissionsome ethicists have expressed concern about the reproductive autonomy.
If women feel pressured to delay motherhood, egg freezing could be hindering equality in the workplace. The effect of motherhood in women’s professional careers is widely documented.
Experts have suggested that compared to women who do not have children, women with children are more likely to be paid less and receive fewer promotions.
At least in the developed world, one of the main reasons is the cost of childcareIf this expense eats into a parent’s salary, mothers – more than fathers – often feel economically pressured to stop working.
For those who fear being left behindegg freezing may seem like an attractive option. One way to deal with this pressure, according to experts, is to make sure that egg freezing does not detract from parental benefits.
To start with, a generous remuneration For those who take maternity or paternity leave, this can be helpful. The possibility for new parents to work flexibly can also make it easier for them to continue working. Some companies, although a minority, even offer office daycare.
Is work a decisive factor?
Although some mothers may feel pressured to freeze their eggs for professional reasonsIt is also important to note that many women are motivated by other factors.
Anthropologist Marcia C Inhorn, for example, has suggested that some women are driven to delay parenthood when they find themselves singleIn her book “Motherhood on Ice,” she writes of her 150 interviewees: “Egg freezing wasn’t about their careers. It was about being single or in a relationship.” very unstable relationships with men who were not willing to engage with them.”
For Annabel Robbins, a woman now undergoing her fourth cycle of egg harvesting, these testimonies resonate. A paralegal on the Isle of Wight, she tells Euronews that she decided to freeze her eggs for the first time at the age of 35 at the Complete Fertility clinic.
“I didn’t have a partner at the time. I think I was worried that it might take a while before I found someone. And if I didn’t find someone, I didn’t want to lose all chances of having children,” Annabel explains.
“I have always had a very active life and Children had not been my priority… And one day, at 35, I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to figure this out. ‘ But I don’t think work was a deciding factor.” The company didn’t pay for Annabel’s treatment, although it did allow her to take a little paid leave.
In her view, company-sponsored egg freezing could be a positive step, but she also stressed the importance of having a fertility-supportive culture in the workplace“For the past two years, my anxiety has gotten worse. I wake up with this sort of metaphorical clock over my head thinking, you know, is this going to be the last egg?”
“I thought it would be best to inform my boss that I wasn’t going to be the same as always. They were very supportive and understanding.”
It’s all about choosing
Natalie Silverman, co-founder of UK-based group Fertility Matters at Work, also spoke to Euronews about how employers can better manage conversations about fertility.
Since many companies do not have formal policies regarding this, many workers are reluctant to take time off. In addition, they often do not speak openly with their company about the treatment.
Natalie tells testimonies of people he has worked with: “They often felt guilty about delegating [tareas] on their peers, or they had to lie about what they did. Sometimes they were in the fertility clinic and they still had to be on their laptops.”
By speaking to companies and employees, Fertility Matters at Work hopes to change these patterns in the workplace. Natalie also stressed that when it comes to the egg freezing funded by the company, this option could be “empowering” under the right conditions.
Egg freezing It is not a guarantee of pregnancyshe said, so women need to be reminded of that. “It has to be done with the right kind of information and education, but we don’t think it’s exploitative for women to have it as an option.”
like the anticonceptive pill revolutionized bodily autonomy in the 1970s, affordable egg freezing could dramatically change women’s relationship with their fertility. Informed choice, experts say, remains key.
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