Corporate giants Apple and Facebook have come up with controversial perk services for its employees. The Silicon Valley giants will now start to pay their female employees to freeze their eggs.
Facebook had recently begun offering perks for egg freezing, which makes it one of the major corporations in the technology sector to do so. Apple will begin serving the company staff's - both full time and part time up to $20,000 from January onwards.
"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 treatments. 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," said Apple in a statement, reported Reuters.
It was NBC who first reported this news and called it "a game changer at the work place." Egg freezing is a costly procedure, which would cost $10,000 per round and $500 per year for the storage. The companies have introduced these new benefits to make sure that their employees stay competitive.
Silicon Valley is reportedly a male dominated space and the experts believe that this would attract more female job seekers to the company.
Egg freezing has become a popular option as it gives the women various opportunities during their prime career building years. Egg freezing or Oocyte Cycropreservation is a procedure in which women are allowed to have their eggs extracted and stored. These eggs can be later planted into the uterus, which means a woman can even become pregnant at an age when her fertility declines.
Studies show that these eggs can be stored for up to 10 years. However, all the egg freezing cases do not guarantee a positive result.
"Egg freezing gives women more control. When I turned 30, I had this notion that my biological clock was ticking, but I didn't know what my options were. These employers should be commended," said Jennifer Tye, marketing lead for Glow, a mobile application aimed at helping women avoid pregnancy or conceive, to Reuters
However, the new policy of the corporate companies for their employees' better family planning has sparked controversy and discussion in the social media platforms. While, a section on social media supports the move, others opines that the companies should try to have a more balanced workspace, which allows flexibility for the new parents.
