Forget the company car… the new prized benefit could be frozen eggs.

Forget the company car… the new prized benefit could be frozen eggs.


When it comes to employee benefits, we are used to health and life insurance, pension contributions and maybe the odd company car. However, according to NBC News, from January 2015, Facebook and Apple are going to be doing something quite new: in the US, they are promising to pay for their female employees to freeze their eggs.

The assertion is that preserving eggs levels the playing field in the male-dominated tech industry and could be significant for women who have traditionally had to make a choice between motherhood and their careers as men rise up the career ladder.

Further, in pure financial terms, this really is a generous benefit. The cost of offering the procedure is £12,500, plus an additional £300 a year for deep freeze storage.

The offer comes as part of “the perks arms race” whereby the tech giants are trying to think of anything they can to tempt the most talented staff to join them. If these companies can stop women from thinking that there is a stark choice between a career and having babies, then the talent pool to pick from would significantly widen.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, is known for her pro-women stance and therefore it should probably come as no surprise that she is at the forefront of innovative ideas targeting women. Facebook already gives new parents £3,000 in so called “baby cash” to spend however they like.

Anything that gives a choice can only be a good thing, right? Well, so long as it is a genuine choice. If the choice is career now (and freeze away) or baby, then the choice is a little less genuine.

Harvard Law School academic Glenn Cohen considered this point, asking: “Would potential female associates welcome this option knowing that they can work hard early on and still reproduce, if they so desire, later on?

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

Clearly only time will tell if this benefit will be a golden egg for employees or a rotten one.