Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) are taking significant steps towards lowering gender inequality in the male dominated world by offering women employees $20000 for freezing eggs.
Silicon Valley, which is known for offering incredible job perks, just extended its perks offering. Recently, Apple and Facebook initiated program, which could help the companies to attract more female employees.
Smart move from Apple, Facebook
Recently, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) said via e-mail that it offers egg freezing for female employees. These employees will be paid up to $20,000. The social networker already offers benefits such as adoption and surrogacy assistance, and “a host of other fertility services for male and female employees.”
Also, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), one of the most desired companies to work with, offers similar perks like egg freezing and storage, extended maternity leave, adoption assistance and infertility treatments. Apple said in a statement that the company wants to empower women “to do the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families.” The company’s program of paying for egg freezing will start from January.
The new perks for the female executives to free their eggs will help Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to make them more attractive to the female employees. It will also help the tech giants to lower the gender disparity, which has been in the news recently.
More of a personal decision
Generally, a round of egg-freezing cost about $10000 excluding $500 or more fees each year for storage. Two rounds are generally required to harvest about 20 eggs, which are considered ideal.
However, this option is not suitable for every woman; believe Kellye Sheehan, with Women in Technology, a professional organization for women in the tech industry. She noted that even though it is a nice perk but the choice totally depends on a personal decision of each working women.
The idea of freezing eggs for later use was first proposed for cancer patients. Basically, Chemotherapy damages women’s eggs, so removing these eggs and immediately freezing will later give a chance to have kids.
