Digital industry offers female employees controversial egg freezing service

Women working for tech giants Facebook and Apple are being offered an unorthodox service: they can have their eggs frozen. The service, which has been offered since the start of this year at Facebook, and later next year at Apple, is designed to attract and keep top female talent by helping them avoid having to “choose” between motherhood and professional progression.

The reasoning behind the service suggests that women’s fertility typically begins to decline from the age of 27, which is often also an age which typically sees career progression.

In a statement, Apple said:

“We continue to expand our benefits for women, with a new extended maternity leave policy, along with cryopreservation and egg storage as part of our extensive support for infertility treatment…We want to empower women at Apple to do the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families.”

Both companies are offering up to $20,000 (£12,500) for US employees covered by their insurance plans, to finance the procedure to extract the eggs and for their storage. Although the service has been welcomed by some, other commentators suggested the companies should instead focus on offering more flexibility and support for parenting.