Apple and Facebook will be offering up to $20,000 worth of benefits, reports Business Week, to employees who are doing sperm donations and, in the case of female employees, freezing their eggs.
The move by both companies "comes amid stiff competition for skilled engineers, and as many of the biggest firms try to diversify their male-dominated ranks to include and appeal to more women," according to Barbara Ortutay.
"Apple's and Facebook's reproductive benefits policies could also appeal to gay and lesbian couples who want to use a surrogate or a sperm donor to have a baby, or heterosexual couples who incur in vitro fertilization costs not covered by insurance. Apple also reimburses adoption costs," Ortutay adds.
However, Claire Miller of the NY Times asks, "By paying for women to delay pregnancy, are employers helping them achieve that balance - or avoiding policies that experts agree would greatly help solve the problem, like paid family leave, child care and flexible work arrangements?"
"For women whose circumstances have made it unrealistic to have a baby and who are considering egg freezing, the new benefit is likely to be a highly welcome surprise. Yet workplaces 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," Miller adds in her article.
Dr. Alan Copperman, a fertility specialist working at Mt. Sinai Hospital, says Apple and Facebook are "ahead of the game" by making the offer to pay for these procedures, as both companies can use this as recruitment and retention tools for their workforce.
For J. Maureen Henderson of Forbes.com, however, calls it "unsettling", and says employees shouldn't trust nor work for companies that pay their employees to freeze their eggs.
"Egg freezing doesn't solve the problem of equal opportunities for advancement and career achievement for men and women, it simply timeshifts the period when women exit the workforce for child bearing to later in their working life," she writes.
