October 16, 2014

You may have seen the recent news that Apple and Facebook are to offer to pay for female employees to freeze their eggs so that they can delay having children. My initial reaction was that this was a joke, but apparently it’s not. According to their PR people, it’s all part of an initiative designed to recruit and retain more female staff in an effort to rectify the gender imbalance. Having had a brief look at the reaction on social media, it seems that the move has provoked a mixed response. Some are saying that it’s a valuable benefit which will allow women who wish to have children greater choice about when to start their families. And given that Facebook are reportedly offering up to $20,000 for egg freezing, it’s difficult to argue that it’s not a decent perk from a financial perspective. Others are arguing that it is a cynical ploy to persuade women to put their careers before their family and that it reinforces the notion that having children will impair a woman’s chances of climbing the career ladder. Whatever the motivation for employer-funded egg freezing, my personal view is that it’s difficult to see it catching on in the UK. Maybe we’re a bit old-fashioned, but I think that most people would think it just a little bit weird for this sort of thing to form part of their benefits package. What would be next – free contraception as a staff perk? Surely that would be a step too far.