Women in the Workplace: Would You Freeze Your Eggs to Free Your Career?

The nation’s highest-profile technology companies are creating some unusual policies in order to encourage women to keep working through the peak of their childbearing years. As part of its insurance benefits package, Facebook covers medical procedures that allow women to freeze their eggs so they can delay having children. Apple is expected to offer its employees the same benefit by January of next year.

In Silicon Valley, gender diversity comes at a price:

“The cost of freezing eggs typically adds up to at least $10,000 for each round of treatment, plus $500 or more annually for storage, according to NBC News. … Facebook, which introduced the benefit in January, covers all eligible fertility treatments up to a maximum of $20,000.”

Both Facebook and Apple have a workforce that is over 70% male at all levels of the business, and that trend skews higher the further up the corporate ladder one looks. But is the right path toward gender equality making women conform to the patterns that men have traditionally observed? As business tycoon Azim Premji said in his Big Think interview, women may benefit more from flexible working schedules rather than ones that restrain their natural tendencies.