Large companies have begun offering more fertility-related workplace perks as the number of women freezing their eggs rises significantly, and the pressure to attract staff forces businesses to develop more creative benefits.
In Australia’s second most populated city alone, egg freezing tripled from pre-pandemic levels, with nearly 5,000 women currently storing their frozen eggs, according to the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority.
Spotify also now provides employees with three cycles of IVF, which could cost up to $60,000 (US$38,000).
“We often find a lot of people joining us, perhaps even at lower offers than other companies that are giving them because … we have a much richer total compensation package if you convert how much parental leave costs and how much IVF costs,” Spotify Head of HR Michael Kim told the Australian.
“So is it winning the war for talent for younger generations? Absolutely. But I think we’re also attracting that Gen Z crowd because of our values and culture,” Kim said.
From the start of 2022, Pinterest began offering all staff egg freezing, two IVF cycles, and breast milk shipping for travelling mothers.
Hollywood’s Influence on Egg Freezing
Initially designed for medical reasons, oöcyte cryopreservation, or egg freezing, has been increasingly used for social reasons such as delaying giving birth.The spike in egg freezing in the past few years comes thanks in part to the influence of Hollywood celebrities promoting the practice:
Kourtney Kardashian went so far as to film her egg-freezing preparation on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, while Amy Schumer demystified the most uncomfortable aspects of the process, sharing photos of her bloated and bruised stomach as she injected hormones into her body to trigger ovulation.
Fertility experts advise that while egg freezing gives women an insurance policy, they will need to take fertility drugs, which can have side effects including cramping, bloating, and blood clots.
When they are ready to conceive using their frozen eggs, they must undergo IVF to get pregnant or use a surrogate to carry the child for them.
“At 14 years of age IVF offspring had a higher incidence of clinical depression (12 percent compared to eight percent),” lead researcher Prof. Roger Hart said.
Both IVF girls and boys have also demonstrated a tendency towards more allergies, such as hay fever and food allergies but showed no differences compared to the control group for asthma. Other long-term health and psychological trends for IVF babies remain the topic of ongoing research.
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