Facebook and Apple Will Pay for Female Employees to Freeze Their Eggs
Facebook and Apple have taken a pretty big step in supporting their female employees and attracting more of them: both companies will be covering egg freezing for non-medical reasons.
Facebook just started covering the procedure and Apple’s coverage will begin in January. It’s a pretty huge deal given how expensive egg-freezing is. It can cost anywhere between $5,000-$12,000 just for one cycle and storage can cost $500-$800 per year. As Danielle Friedman at NBC writes, the two companies cover the freezing differently: “Apple covers costs under its fertility benefit, and Facebook under its surrogacy benefit, both up to $20,000.”
Offering egg freezing will pay off in a number of ways, as Friedman points out:
The benefit will likely encourage women to stay with their employer longer, cutting down on recruiting and hiring costs. And practically speaking, when women freeze their eggs early, firms may save on pregnancy costs in the long run, said Westphal. A woman could avoid paying to use a donor egg down the road, for example, or undergoing more intensive fertility treatments when she’s ready to have a baby.
Hopefully other companies will follow suit. Obviously it might be hard for a mom and pop shop to cover the expenses, but having other larger companies take such an initiative to support the women working for them would be invaluable.
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