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Facebook and Apple Employees Can Now Freeze Their Eggs for Free
Facebook and Apple are both implementing plans to pay for women employees to freeze their eggs.
According to NBC News, the tech firms appear to be the first major companies to cover freezing eggs for non-medical reasons. Facebook recently implemented the policy, and Apple will start doing so in January 2015. Both companies will cover the procedure up to $20,000.
Though it's not clear whether Facebook's COO had anything to do with the decision, freezing eggs can help women achieve Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In ideal, building careers rather than focusing on the pressure to start a family. But the process is prohibitively expensive for most women without employer coverage, costing $10,000 for each session and $500 a year to store the eggs.
The policy is a win for Apple and Facebook, too, since Silicon Valley companies use lavish perks to help compete for top talent. Covering egg freezing can help both companies hire top women in the industry, and keep them there during the years when they might otherwise drop out of the workforce to have kids.
But some experts worry the policy might not work out well for all workers. "Would [lawyers] take this as a signal that the firm thinks that working there as an associate and pregnancy are incompatible?" Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law School wrote last year. With more large companies expected to consider covering egg freezing down the road, only time will tell.
From: ELLE
Facebook and Apple are both implementing plans to pay for women employees to freeze their eggs.
According to NBC News, the tech firms appear to be the first major companies to cover freezing eggs for non-medical reasons. Facebook recently implemented the policy, and Apple will start doing so in January 2015. Both companies will cover the procedure up to $20,000.
Though it's not clear whether Facebook's COO had anything to do with the decision, freezing eggs can help women achieve Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In ideal, building careers rather than focusing on the pressure to start a family. But the process is prohibitively expensive for most women without employer coverage, costing $10,000 for each session and $500 a year to store the eggs.
The policy is a win for Apple and Facebook, too, since Silicon Valley companies use lavish perks to help compete for top talent. Covering egg freezing can help both companies hire top women in the industry, and keep them there during the years when they might otherwise drop out of the workforce to have kids.
But some experts worry the policy might not work out well for all workers. "Would [lawyers] take this as a signal that the firm thinks that working there as an associate and pregnancy are incompatible?" Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law School wrote last year. With more large companies expected to consider covering egg freezing down the road, only time will tell.
From: ELLE
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