Apple and Facebook offer employees egg freezing benefit

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/upshot/egg-freezing-as-a-work-benefit-some-women-see-darker-message.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

News broke that Apple and Facebook provide a new benefit to female employees: they will cover the costs of egg freezing up to $20K. Bloomberg Businessweek says this is the "great equalizer" to "liberate" women, but I call BS. It is pretty disturbing to me for several reasons.

We know that tech is fairly misogynist and gender-unequal, especially in leadership and technical roles. Despite Sanberg's "Lean In" evangelism, most FB leaders are male (the major female execs are her, and in the HR dept). Apple and Google are similar. I don't know if the egg freezing benefit is the most crucial thing that women in tech (or prospective women) need now. In this 2011 list, Apple-FB-Google did not make the top 100 best companies to work for as a mom, despite offering great mat-leave, health care, and subsidized onsite day care. Why? Because the stress and workloads are not worth it. You can set up massage and watering stations at each mile of a Marathon course, but it's still a painful grueling Marathon.

What is the egg freezing signaling? A cynic (like me) would conclude that Apple/FB wants its women to fully focus on work (and work super hard) during their fertile younger years (~25-35). Just like their concierge and commute benefits, this is another way that workers don't have to be bothered by "real life", and can just stay in the work bubble thinking about company goals and their career growth all the time (you know, the truly important things in life). They are all about hacking and disrupting everything, so why can't they disrupt family planning too? Who says you can't have it all as a working mom?

But here's the thing, we know that it's illegal for employers to ask about or discriminate based on family. When a worker decides to start a family, often their career trajectory changes permanently, and managers may subtly or overtly perceive them differently from then on. It's only natural. So the egg freezing is a form of insurance, if you will. Those firms hired supposedly child-less younger women. They may be in relationships, but they will mostly be available for the firm 50-80 hrs/week and ~49 weeks/year. That is what the company expects when it hires. So the egg benefit prolongs that arrangement, for a measly sum of $20K (compare that to 1-6 months mat-leave, and all the lost productivity from childcare responsibilities, illnesses, etc. thereafter). And later when the egg freezer decides to finally start a family, the company can marginalize her to a lesser role, eventually replacing her with a man/new young woman. She's already contributed her value to the firm, now she can "go to pasture" and be a mom at Yahoo or Intel.

I could be underestimating Si Valley snobbery, but I think the # of women who will use this benefit will be small, and the # of women thawing their eggs later to start a family even smaller. Biologically, it's more likely they will have kids naturally. But for those who do choose to freeze and have a family via IVF, it won't be a cake walk either. Success rates are under 20% per egg. The mom might be 35-45 at that point. The older you get, the harder it is to deal with the physical strains of motherhood (unless they plan to nanny everything like Marisa Meyer). And by then they would be mid-career, with even more responsibilities and stress vs. their 20's. So is that a better time to start a family? Sure they'll be richer, but it may also be harder to transition from office rock-star to working mommy. So is the egg benefit just a scam from Apple and FB, tricking talented younger women to postpone their family plans to their detriment? And I don't know if there is data on it, but I wonder if child outcomes are different when the parents are older or younger. Of course teen parents are not preferable either, but I wonder if there is such a thing as "too old". Kids will still need their parents when they are 20-30, and it's just harder when they are geriatric by then. 

Lastly, what about the whole cryo-egg/IVF approach? Obviously it is not an option for most women, and is generally monopolized by wealthier white/Asian people (which tech is too). Will this further the rich-poor & racial gaps? Older pregnancies are a larger health risk for both mother and child. One option is a surrogate mom (pay a younger, poorer lady to carry your fetus - she's just renting out her excess capacity like AirBnB, right?). That is such a First World Problem: build vs. buy right? Outsource the non-value-add stuff, so you can focus on making money. Never compromise, innovate to have your cake and eat it too.

But it also reeks of exploitation. It's kind of sick - search for "surrogate mother" and you get a bunch of ads and sites trying to recruit wombs. Obviously demand > supply, especially with the rise of the Chinese upper class. And older couples who want to conceive will often pay any price. Those with medical need should have access to IVF, but what about those who elected to delay parenthood for their careers? That is kind of like paying to jump the line at Disneyland, or for organ donation. Clearly such procedures like IVF are not equal-opportunity, but the poor have the opposite problem - they sometime have too many kids because of lack of education and access to affordable contraception (as we discussed previously during the Hobby Lobby ruling).

There is even "surrogacy tourism" where Western couples lease a Third World womb (really, are they that cheap that they have to offshore it?). A case in Thailand made the headlines because an AUS couple may have "abandoned" one of their twins after discovering he had Down's (they left him with the surrogate Thai mom and returned home with the "desirable" twin). This is just one incident, but you can imagine the ethical and legal minefield that surrogacy presents.

All the sci-fi stuff from our childhood like Brave New World and Gattaca seem to be getting too close for comfort. Those in the "elite" class get all the privileges and get to lead charmed lives (yes, you can have it all when you work for Apple/FB!), and the rest of humanity just serves them, with the narrow/false hope of joining their ranks some day.

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This may also be a symptom of the competitiveness of silicon valley.  What else can you offer once money, food, on site massage, etc is covered?  The incentives are only going to get weirder at this point.

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I agree that there is an "arms race" re: employee benefits to attract good talent, but remember that Google, Apple, and maybe some others got sued for anti-competitive practices (no engineer poaching collusion to keep comp in check), but FB was not involved. So I guess several forces are affecting benefits. Supposedly US raises are being depressed by the rising costs of health coverage too.

If you took a poll at Apple on what new/enhanced benefits the workforce really wants, I doubt that egg freezing would be high on the list. I think it was a pet project by some HR person to "be innovative" and make some news. I assume the workforce really wants (1) more pay, (2) more vacation (true vacation, as in totally unplugged time), (3) more flex time, and (4) more coaching/training/career dev, not necessarily in that order. But most employers won't budge on that stuff. Speaking of vacation, some companies like Netflix offer unlimited paid vacation. But as you can imagine, this could have the opposite effect (workers scared to ask for a lot of time off, and without a vacation stipend, the firm saves money by not paying out unused balance).

There are some "nefarious benefits" that actually benefit the firm more than the worker. Like offering free dinner - that could encourage workers to stay later (with no OT pay) and the company gets a little more productivity out of them (even if they goof off much of that time). It got so bad at EA that workers sued to reclaim OT and become hourly workers, so at least they get comped for their longer hours. So I think the egg freezing is part of that - it delays family life, which benefits the company possibly at the expense of the worker.