Egg-freezing staff perks suit employers not employees, says academic
An eminent university professor has condemned egg-freezing employee perks as merely there to “maximize the worker’s time and commitment to the job and minimize their investments in their own family including when it comes to having family in the first place.” The claim, by University of Virginia sociology professor, W. Bradford Wilcox, blasts the perk as being an anti family policy, because it makes life easier for employers and erodes Americans’ chances of becoming parents themselves. Although employers often claim the benefit is there to boost female representation (some 42% of firms now cover IVF and 19% cover egg freezing), Wilcox said employers are merely “trying to get the employee to kick the can down the road, so that in the moment, they are fully attached to the job.” He continued: “It’s sold as a work-family policy, but it’s really about minimizing women’s opportunities to have kids in the prime years when it’s easiest for them to have children.” Data from the US Census Bureau shows the share of women in the workforce decreases by 18% in the quarter they have their first child, and this number decreases again with more children. It is a “huge expense to lose a good worker to parenthood,” Wilcox added, because companies invest time, resources, and money on training and cultivation. “That expense is effectively a lot greater than the cost of freezing her eggs.”