Give Us Your Fertile Years: Apple and Facebook Will Pay to Freeze Your Eggs

At the intersection of good intentions and just-plain-weird, two of the biggest tech companies are offering their female employees an unusual benefits package.

For those women who want to keep working through their younger and more fertile years without pausing to start a family, Facebook and Apple are willing to pay to have their eggs harvested, frozen and stored. The process costs $10,000 a cycle, and the companies will pay for two cycles, plus the annual storage fee.

There is something undeniably icky about this. It raises the question about how involved in family planning an employer should be, and it suggests that the young fertile years are perhaps better spent at a desk than on maternity leave. Also, egg harvesting isn’t the most commonplace procedure, and there’s no guarantee of a baby at the end of the oocyte cryopreservation rainbow.

That said, both companies already offer child care, according to The Verge, and this is money where before there wasn’t any. No one is forcing anyone to take it. Also, tech companies have a notorious problem attracting a diverse workforce, especially where women are concerned.

Here’s an idea: Why not pay the husband or significant other $20,000 to stay home and babysit the kids? Mama’s got a career in the oven.

— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer