Facebook and Apple are offering women employees the chance to put their dreams of motherhood on ice – by paying for them to freeze their eggs.
The extraordinary perk is aimed at boosting the number of women staff by allowing them to focus on their careers without sacrificing the opportunity to have children later in life。
The Silicon Valley giants – the first major employers to offer the procedure for non-medical reasons – are willing to pay £12,500 a time to cover the cost of putting the eggs on ice plus an additional £300-a-year for deep freeze storage。
The eggs can then be planted into the patient’s uterus at time of her choosing when she may no longer be producing them naturally. According to NBC News, Facebook has begun paying for egg freezing and Apple will start in January。
Preserving eggs has been described as a key to ‘levelling the playing field’ in the male-dominated tech industry and a possible game-changer for women who have traditionally had to choose between their careers and starting a family at a time when their male counterparts are climbing the ladder. ‘Having a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do,’ Brigitte Adams, an egg-freezing advocate and founder of the patient forum Eggsurance.com, told NBC。
‘By offering this benefit, companies are investing in women and supporting them in carving out the lives they want,’ she added。
Paying for the procedure can be seen as rewarding women employees for their commitment, said San Francisco specialist Philip Chenette. Women who know they want children someday ‘can go on with their lives and know that they’ve done everything that they can’。
In the past year, fertility doctors in New York and San Francisco report that egg freezing cases have nearly doubled。
In a 2013 survey published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, a majority of patients who had their eggs frozen reported feeling ‘empowered.’
The fact that two of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are introducing the initiative is no coincidence. Tech giants are fighting for talented staff in what has become known as the ‘perk arms race’。
Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, in particular, is known for her pro-women stance。
The social media firm gives new parents £3,000 in so-called ‘baby cash’ to spend however they like. Both firms also offer generous wellness-orientated benefits to staff。
Critics say the move is simply a ploy to persuade women to stay with the company。
Last night an Apple source indicated the company had no plans to extend the policy to the firm’s UK workforce。
An Apple spokesman in the US said: ‘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.’
However Harvard Law School academic Glenn Cohen, asked: ‘Would potential female associates [staff] 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?’
據(jù)《每日郵報》報道，蘋果公司和Facebook出臺了新政策，為公司女員工出資冷凍卵子以了卻她們遲些做母親的夢想。
花費這筆不菲的費用旨在吸引更多的女性人才，冷凍卵子可以讓女員工們專注于事業(yè)而又不耽誤她們遲些生寶寶。
這兩大硅谷科技巨頭公司提出愿意報銷卵子冷凍操作過程的一次性費用12,500英鎊(合12萬1714元)以及每年的深層冷凍存儲費用300英鎊(2921元)。這兩家公司可能是美國大企業(yè)當中首批為出于非醫(yī)療原因冷凍卵子的女員工支付這一費用的。
冷凍卵子后，女員工可以自行選擇時間提出卵子植入子宮，這樣即使她已不能自然排卵時也能懷孕。據(jù)美國全國廣播公司(NBC News)報道，F(xiàn)acebook最近已開始落實這一福利，蘋果則將于明年1月開始。
冷凍卵子被稱作是“平衡男性主導的科技行業(yè)男女比例”的關鍵，也可能因此改寫以往的游戲規(guī)則：男性可以專注于事業(yè)，而同樣處于事業(yè)上升期的女性卻必須在事業(yè)和家庭之間選一個。“身居要職和當一個好媽媽目前仍不能兩全，”布里吉特•亞當斯(Brigitte Adams)這樣告訴NBC的記者，她是冷凍卵子計劃的支持者之一，也是美國“卵保”論壇(Eggsurance.com)的創(chuàng)始人。
“公司的這一福利是在為女員工投資，也是支持她們去追尋自己想要的生活，”她補充道。
舊金山生殖醫(yī)學專家菲利普•錢內特(Philip Chenette)表示，報銷冷凍卵子費用可視為對女員工敬業(yè)精神的回饋。有了這項福利，有未來受孕計劃的女性便“可以繼續(xù)她們眼下的生活，并且清楚自己已做好了足夠準備。”
而紐約和舊金山的生育醫(yī)生則稱冷凍卵子的人數(shù)在去年幾乎翻了一倍。
2013年美國期刊《生育與不孕》(Fertility and Sterility)的一項調查顯示，接受了卵子冷凍的大多數(shù)女性表示她們感覺“自己的權利得到了保障”。
而這兩大硅谷科技巨頭公司帶頭出臺新福利政策絕非偶然。如今科技行業(yè)的人才爭奪戰(zhàn)愈演愈烈，各大公司都在為“振奮士氣”進行福利博弈。
Facebook的首席運營官雪莉•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)尤其以其女性主義立場著稱。
這家社交媒體企業(yè)(Facebook)為初為父母的員工提供3000英鎊(合29240元)的“寶貝基金”隨他們使用。而蘋果和Facebook兩家公司都為員工設立了各種健康福利。
評論家們稱兩大公司的這一舉動簡單來講就是為了留住女性人才的一個策略。
但昨晚從蘋果傳來消息稱公司目前并沒有計劃將這一政策推廣到英國部門。
蘋果公司的美國發(fā)言人稱：“我們希望以此鼓勵蘋果的女員工們發(fā)揮最好的工作狀態(tài)，但同時又能兼顧愛人和家庭。”
然而哈佛大學法學院(Harvard Law School)的學者格倫•科恩(Glenn Cohen)卻對此表示了質疑：“不知道女性員工們對此會有何看法;她們會贊成現(xiàn)在拼命工作然后晚點兒再生寶寶，還是會據(jù)此認定企業(yè)仍然覺得工作和懷孕不能兼顧?”
