Ship of Fools: Freeze your eggs - free your career...

Thread: Freeze your eggs - free your career... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

I may up in Hell for this, but here goes -

It is reported that one or two large US corporates are offering women the perk of egg freezing, to allow them to develop their career through their 30s with the thought that they might choose to attempt a pregnancy later, at an age where an unassisted conception would be generally less likely.

My own immediate thoughts - when a company offers you a phone, it often wants you on the end of it when you don't want to be. When it gives you a car, you're in it driving somewhere you don't want to go to at a time that doesn't suit you or your family. This makes me suspicious of 'perks' - but then I have more of a morbid fear of The Man than many.

I also wonder if anyone will up the game by offering subsidised boarding-school places for any kids which subsequently arise. I have personal family reasons for wondering whether the best that we can achieve viz. gender equality is 1960s Mad-Men-male-wage-slavery, but for women too. But before I go off on that - your thoughts?

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

So, you've developed your career - which I assume means you're now responsible for a business area, or leading a team, or heading up a project - and at this point it's easier to spare you for maternity leave/childcare?

My experience suggests that's the point where you get really busy. So perhaps the childbearing gets nudged back a bit? Forty-five's not old, not these days. And fifty, they say, is the new forty. So by that measure, 52, 53 - say, why not put the whole thing on hold until retirement, when you have time to enjoy it?

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :

Yet another example of businesses thinking they can control every aspect of their employees' lives.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Mark, I think you're right to be suspicious.

Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :

It's a bit Huxleyan - frozen eggs, frozen sperm - why not just go the whole hog and have artificial wombs? Then you don't even have to be alive, yo could just leave a photograph to be placed next to the cot.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I was appalled when I heard this news story: if you haven't 'time' to go through with a pregnancy at the start of your career its unlikely you'll have more 'time' X years down the line.

But the real problem is the blithe assumption that frozen eggs = pregnancies = live, healthy births: not so.

The live birth rate for slow-frozen eggs where the egg donor is under 30 years of age is less than 9%; after age 30 the rate declines steeply.

The rate of live births for eggs preserved using vitrification is slightly higher but, again, declines with age.

In addition to live births declining with increasing age at point of donation, live birth rates also decline with age at implantation.

So the prospect of these women being able to produce live children to order when it suits them is not good.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

How horrible.

Looks like a continuation of the erosion of the boundary between working and private life to me.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

I think it's brilliant and more companies should do it.

In context, this is in the US and I cannot see the difference between this or any other health insurance coverage. It's simply another procedure. Clearly, said companies are listening to their employees and what sort of job benefits they want, and it seems that egg freezing is something they want. Apple for instance already provide daycare, good maternity provision, adoption support etc, and this seems like a natural extension of that. This aspect of reproductive healthcare is expensive, and it's a good and compassionate move to help with that.

It's ridiculous to suggest that this somehow ties people to their company more (though given that so few women work in STEM* industries and how Millenials generally move from job to job very easily, that wouldn't be a bad thing anyway). It's not like every single woman in the company is going to decide to freeze their eggs tomorrow.

*STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics

Posted by marzipan (# 9442) on :

i noticed that they're talking about that on Women's hour this morning (link), but I haven't listened to that yet.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

I further picture myself as a 30yr old woman (OK, it's a stretch in all kinds of ways) preparing for interview for a promotion / permanent role. Will they look on me more favourably if I sign up for the next egg-harvesting scheme? Sure, they won't know - and they never used to ask my older aunties about their family plans in similar circumstances, either. Well, not formally, of course - that would be illegal. Just out of friendly interest. And they were able to, well, dissemble a bit, which might be harder where surgical procedures are involved...

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

In contrast to Pomona, I think it's shit.

Providing better support for women having kids when they want to: hurrah! Offering to stump up for egg freezing if that's what the women want and have elected to do: hurrah-ish (see below). But giving the implication that if you want to get on in the company you're expected to do this: boo, boo and thrice boo.

Apart from anything else, it serves to perpetuate the misconception (no pun) that you can get a baby to order via IVF. That's far from the case. So not only are they (potentially) bringing pressure to bear to sell out personal choices to the corporate good, they're also (potentially) holding out unrealistic expectations of future outcomes. It sucks, and there are far better ways to support career women who want to have kids.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

For some reason it reminded me of this news story about Branson giving his staff "unlimited" holiday... which sounds wonderful, but in practice seems to mean that you are only allowed to take holidays when everyone else in the team agrees they can manage without you for a while (for some people, this could be 'never').

Oh, and what Snags and Firenze said.

Paranoid, Mark? I don't think so...

[ 16. October 2014, 13:43: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by ChaliceGirl (# 13656) on :

In the US, it's against the law to ask a candidate for a job if they plan to have children. This stems from from a time when mostly male employers were reluctant to hire mothers or mothers to be. So, it is unlikely that during an interview, you'd be asked to freeze your eggs.

That being said, what disturbs me is the amount of money put into this process! $10,000 for freezing eggs?? That could feed a child living in poverty. Let's take care of the children already here instead of putting such expense into making new ones.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

But where is the implication that women had better do it to further their career? They're giving women the option of it, that's all.

And given Apple's existing support of women in the company who have children through other ways, surely it's just more comprehensively covering the options? No, IVF doesn't work for everyone and it can be very traumatising to find that it doesn't work after expecting it to do so. But that's hardly the fault of the companies providing it - they're not making any promises about what will happen, simply extending the range of reproductive healthcare procedures available.

If it was companies subsidising or paying for vasectomies, nobody would care or suggest some kind of suspicious ulterior motive. People are only bothered when women are given more choice over their bodies.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ChaliceGirl:
In the US, it's against the law to ask a candidate for a job if they plan to have children. This stems from from a time when mostly male employers were reluctant to hire mothers or mothers to be. So, it is unlikely that during an interview, you'd be asked to freeze your eggs.

That being said, what disturbs me is the amount of money put into this process! $10,000 for freezing eggs?? That could feed a child living in poverty. Let's take care of the children already here instead of putting such expense into making new ones.

Sooo women should just suck it up and stay childless if they're not suitable for going for adoption? Adoption is not the universal solution to infertility.

$10,000 doesn't seem that much more than other invasive medical procedure costs - giving birth will cost much more for instance, should Apple refuse to cover that in order to feed a child in poverty? Also it's not like you can just somehow transfer that money over and end poverty for that child or something, it's the institutional structures of society keeping that poverty going rather than a woman having her eggs frozen.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
How horrible.

Looks like a continuation of the erosion of the boundary between working and private life to me.

I disagree. Most medical insurance in the U.S. is gained through employment. While that may indeed "ero[de] . . . the boundary between working and private life", including one more medical procedure in the company plan doesn't seem to tilt the balance any more than it already is. Plus it's fairly good that it runs counter to the idea that reproductive medicine (or anything to do with ladyparts generally) isn't "real" medical care.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

This could be a pond difference, then. In the UK, the NHS will fund fertility treatment under some circumstances. Many people pay for it themselves, though, either because they want treatment immediately or because they don't fit the criteria for public funding. And I have to say, an otherwise healthy woman in her 20s who wants to freeze some of her eggs so that she can concentrate on her career and have a baby in ten or fifteen years' time would not. As L'organist said, the success rate for IVF using frozen eggs and embryos is fairly low and the NHS does not have an unlimited pot of money. On the other hand, they would fund this procedure for a young woman who was about to undergo treatment that might make her infertile (eg radiotherapy).

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Is it an attempt to continue to try to fit women into the male mould? Such that you must work continuously with primary dedication to career and company otherwise you are 'red circled' or otherwise of questionable advancement material? Yes, we will all lie on our deathbeds wishing we worked harder for the nameless corp(se).

How about enforce proper maternity leave standards and non-discrimination when mothers return to work? Force companies to have daycare in the workplace, as well as before and after school programs. This can all be easily paid for (and we could all have free post-secondary education in addition) if we stopped giving money in the form of subsidies, tax breaks and outright corporate welfare handouts to already rich oil companies, bankers and other grasping, deformed people.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
How horrible.

Looks like a continuation of the erosion of the boundary between working and private life to me.
I disagree. Most medical insurance in the U.S. is gained through employment. While that may indeed "ero[de] . . . the boundary between working and private life", including one more medical procedure in the company plan doesn't seem to tilt the balance any more than it already is. Plus it's fairly good that it runs counter to the idea that reproductive medicine (or anything to do with ladyparts generally) isn't "real" medical care.

Exactly where I am coming from. It's adding one procedure to the many the company already covers through health insurance, and certainly not the most expensive or invasive surgery already covered. It's just that somehow reproductive medicine is seen as optional in ways other forms of medicine isn't - rather like mental health care, in that sense.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Undergoing hormone treatment to hyper-stimulate the ovaries into producing multiple eggs in order to harvest and freeze them might be "reproductive medicine" for someone facing a loss of fertility through e.g. treatment for cancer, or for someone who is alreadt experiencing fertility problems and is undergoing IVF but it's not "reproductive medicine" for someone who wants to delay pregnancy for career reasons.

Indeed, it's a way of reducing a woman's chance of having a child as conceiving with a frozen egg as a woman approaches the menopause is far less likely to result in a baby than conceiving the old-fashioned way up to the age of forty.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is it an attempt to continue to try to fit women into the male mould? Such that you must work continuously with primary dedication to career and company otherwise you are 'red circled' or otherwise of questionable advancement material? Yes, we will all lie on our deathbeds wishing we worked harder for the nameless corp(se).

How about enforce proper maternity leave standards and non-discrimination when mothers return to work? Force companies to have daycare in the workplace, as well as before and after school programs. This can all be easily paid for (and we could all have free post-secondary education in addition) if we stopped giving money in the form of subsidies, tax breaks and outright corporate welfare handouts to already rich oil companies, bankers and other grasping, deformed people.

Good idea.
Schools have to provide evidence of educational standards before they recieve accredidation. How about if we required large corporations to provide evidence of adequate worker support-- such as realistic maternity leave, childcare, health care, work hours, etc-- before they were eligible for their tax breaks?
And yeah, perhaps if we stopped treating pregnant women like corporate liabilites, they woudn't have to freeze their eggs to have a career.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:

If it was companies subsidising or paying for vasectomies, nobody would care or suggest some kind of suspicious ulterior motive. People are only bothered when women are given more choice over their bodies.

I would be quite freaked out if my employer offered to pay for a vasectomy for me.

As for ulterior motives, I don't think companies generally offer non-equal perks unless they get something out of the deal. By 'non-equal' I mean a perk that will only benefit employees in specific circumstances. If they just felt like being nice to their employees, they could give them $10,000 to spend on whatever they liked.

Example: my workplace is on a business park in the middle of nowhere and my employer provides free transport to the nearest railway station. This only really benefits employees who don't drive, but that's because my employer isn't so much motivated by disinterested kindness, but by wanting to make sure that people can actually get to work and do productive stuff.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I would be quite freaked out if my employer offered to pay for a vasectomy for me.

FWIW, both vasectomies and tubal ligations are routinely covered by US health insurance.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

Pomona, I'm genuinely surprised you see it that way. If that is both the intent and the outcome then great. I just don't buy it. Not for a moment.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I would be quite freaked out if my employer offered to pay for a vasectomy for me.

FWIW, both vasectomies and tubal ligations are routinely covered by US health insurance.

Sure, but AIUI the egg-freezing is to be paid directly by the company, rather than via an insurance policy. Which does make a difference in terms of the message it gives to staff.

(In fact, surely if the egg freezing is a free choice by the employee, rather than something medically necessary, it should be impossible to get it covered by insurance - because, by its very nature, insurance is for things you cannot control?)

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

So long as there's no coercion (and why should there be?) it seems like a fairly good idea.

Plenty of young Western women focus on building up a good career; others don't find Mr Right until a bit later in life. But their fertility is compromised in the meantime. Having their eggs frozen is just one way to address that, and if companies want to offer that as part of their package, why shouldn't they?

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Oh, there's coercion, all right.

In any high-powered, high-pressured company where this option is offered, there will be certain assholes (often in power) looking askance at any woman under the age of 35 (maybe 40?) who comes in pregnant. Because the (partly illusory) option to wait is there, don't you know. So (in their minds) pregnancy before the very last biological minute is proof that the woman concerned is not dedicated to her job. Therefore, no promotions, no great assignments, no decent raises...

If they were purely concerned about their workers' families' health and wellbeing, they'd offer sperm freezing as well so that their male employees could avoid the risks that go with older fatherhood (higher risk of schizophrenia, etc. etc.) And men, too, are at risk of problems (cancer?) that can lead to sterility. Why the discrimination against men, then, if it's purely on health grounds?

But then, early to normal years fatherhood isn't a career barrier in the same way that early to normal years motherhood is.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

I can't imagine many women will be looking for a 'high-powered, high-pressured' job while pregnant. Those few women who are in this situation are likely to be geared up to proving how tough they can be.

I'm sure that the kinds of places that'll offer this (expensive) option are already attracting highly ambitious women who are fully focused on developing their careers.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

But then, early to normal years fatherhood isn't a career barrier in the same way that early to normal years motherhood is.

It is if a father lets his emplyers know he intends to make his fatherhood a priority over career advancement. Single fathers get the same bullshit discrimination in the workplace that mothers ( single or otherwise) do.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Certainly; perhaps I should have said "employers don't automatically discriminate the minute they notice a man's gender on this account the way they do with women, regardless of whether the employee has said a word about child rearing plans or not." What's odd here is that two pieces of fuckwittery almost undo themselves for most men. Piece one is the automatic troglodyte discrimination against parents who plan to have children; but for most men this is undone by the equally troglodyte assumption that men won't handle hardly any child rearing responsibilities and thus can be safely left on the fast career track.

But yes, announce your intentions and your cover is blown, male or female. It's just that young women don't usually have any cover to start with.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Totally agreed.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
So long as there's no coercion (and why should there be?) it seems like a fairly good idea.

Plenty of young Western women focus on building up a good career; others don't find Mr Right until a bit later in life. But their fertility is compromised in the meantime. Having their eggs frozen is just one way to address that, and if companies want to offer that as part of their package, why shouldn't they?

Every now and then some well-meaning soul proposes a new way in which women can protect themselves against sexual assault, and this provokes outrage because it seems to make women responsible for not being assaulted when the responsibility lies with the aggressor.

This seems to me an analogous situation. It shouldn't be women's responsibility to get their eggs frozen, it should be society's responsibility not to put them in a position where they feel they have to.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

This seems to me an analogous situation. It shouldn't be women's responsibility to get their eggs frozen, it should be society's responsibility not to put them in a position where they feel they have to.

Amen

At the interview for my first job I was asked "You are engaged to be married, does that mean you will be having children soon?"

My future husband was not asked the same question, of course.

Inequality.

Things are better now, they are not allowed to ask such questions - but plenty think it nonetheless imo.

It's never easy to decide when to have children. My niece had a high flying career and has just had twins at 40 years old. She's feeling sad that she'll be 60 when they are 20.

Her Mum had her at 18 then went to university aged 40. She graduated on the same day as my niece, then went on to a super career which she loved and put her all into.

It's not easy and we don't always have the choice. I wanted kids aged 22 but was very infertile so had a long wait - meanwhile I had a good career, but would have preferred to have my kids young.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Well, that's the point, isn't it. There just isn't a convenient time in your life to combine having children with having a career if you are going to be the primary caregiver - unless you wait until retirement, as Firenze said. Those high-flying women who (seem to) have it all are managing by delegating the job of looking after their children to someone else. I'm not saying they are wrong (it used to be the accepted method in the upper and middle classes and anyone who didn't hire a professional to look after her children was viewed as dangerously radical) but it's not an option open to everyone, because good childcare costs a lot of money.

To reiterate: unless you have fertility problems, your best chance of getting pregnant if you are under 40 is by having lots of sex with your partner. No doctors or expensive 'reproductive medicine' required. The success rate of IVF with frozen eggs is quite low and it's a very stressful, invasive (expensive) procedure; worth it in the end if you get a healthy baby who would otherwise not exist, but not if you could conceive naturally and just want to postpone having a baby for as long as possible. Somebody has been taking 'Brave New World' way too seriously.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
Those high-flying women who (seem to) have it all are managing by delegating the job of looking after their children to someone else.

[MiM looks both ways, steps forward, takes a bow]

quote:
...good childcare costs a lot of money.

[MiM looks in wallet, frowns, writes on back of hand to make appointment with an accountant]

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I can't imagine many women will be looking for a 'high-powered, high-pressured' job while pregnant. Those few women who are in this situation are likely to be geared up to proving how tough they can be.

Not many overall perhaps but in Silicon Valley this is less rare. Yahoo CEO Marisa Mayer started that job while pregnant with her first child. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg writes in her book "Lean In" about pushing for better benefits while pregnant and working at Google.

In regard to the policy in general, I find it suspicious because the companies could use that $20,000 for egg freezing to give benefits that would actually address the reasons why 20-30 something ambitious young women delay childbearing in the first place. Like, use it towards a down payment on a house. Or for childcare. Or for training/education that gets their skills back up to scratch after longer maternity leave.

I've worked in mostly male corporations in the past and there is a huge amount of pressure on women not to have kids until they reach senior levels in their career, which normally comes in early-mid 30s. To be fair, men in those industries rarely have children before that age either, but biology allows them to get away with it a bit more. So this policy is likely within a wider context of corporate culture that discourages employees from putting family goals before career goals until they have "paid their dues" in the company first.

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

If this sort of thing became successful and popular, we might have a lot of children growing up without ever getting to know their grandparents.

Posted by Try (# 4951) on :

Well, hopefully people will be living longer as well as having children later.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
If this sort of thing became successful and popular, we might have a lot of children growing up without ever getting to know their grandparents.

My children never knew their grandparents. I had my last two kids late in life (at age 39 and 43), not due to egg freezing/ career-based delays, but because of multiple miscarriages in my early 30s.

There is just so much uncertainty to life, and particularly to reproduction. I hate to see anyone promising young women such a crap shoot of a life plan. But I also for obvious reasons am reluctant to condemn those who follow their own path.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

It shouldn't be women's responsibility to get their eggs frozen, it should be society's responsibility not to put them in a position where they feel they have to.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree. But individual women and individual companies might not want to wait around until society changes.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

If women at Apple feel their career at Apple will suffer unless they freeze their eggs, then that is something that's within Apple's power to change.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
If women at Apple feel their career at Apple will suffer unless they freeze their eggs, then that is something that's within Apple's power to change.

Absolutely. Apple and Facebook claim that they have instituted this policy because female employees requested it. That tells us that for some reason a large number of female employees feel unable to have children right now. Is this because Apple salaries aren't high enough to cover childcare? Is it because the employees work all the time and have no social lives? Is it because women who have children are treated differently and face discrimination after returning from maternity leave? Apple and Facebook can fix these things quite easily, if they want to.

Posted by Prester John (# 5502) on :

A couple of points about Silicon Valley companies and salaries.

It is hard to make a blanket statement concerning salaries and the affordability of childcare. A software engineer is definitely going to be on a different salary level than someone in a backend function- such as an AP manager. That AP manager may be paid more than some software engineers but eventually the engineer will be paid more.

There are definitely some macro-economic issues at play here that are beyond Apple's or Facebook's control. There is a high demand for quality daycare in the Valley with demand outstripping supply. It is expensive. I know couples who went from two incomes to one because one of those incomes was being used entirely to pay for daycare anyway. In the 90s there were a few companies who offered free daycare for their workers. Rising costs caused them to drop these benefits.

If we didn't have family in the area to watch my children, who don't mind if I come home late because of work or a major accident on my ridiculously long commute I don't know how we would do it. Life for a transplant from New York or Ohio, without that network of extended family can be difficult.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

The issue I mentioned above that no one has addressed is that for many highly educated and ambitious women, it's not always easy to find a spouse. Many women today complain that during their most fertile years it's hard to get their boyfriends to commit to them. I don't think paternity leave and on-site creches are going to solve that problem, good though these things are. The societal changes needed would have to be even greater.

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