The egg-freezing work perk

Across the Atlantic, big businesses offer women fertility treatment as a work ‘benefit’ – and now the practice is coming here. Kate Wills investigates

one of the major factors in Alice Turner, 35, from South London, accepting her new job at a global tech company was the perks: a six-figure salary, Ubers to and from work, a very generous holiday allowance and a private healthcare package that included fertility treatment. ‘I was a bit surprised to see the part about egg freezing, but ultimately it feels reassuring,’ says Alice, who’s currently in a long-term relationship with a younger man and doesn’t feel ready to start a family. ‘I keep hearing about how fertility declines in your thirties, so freezing my eggs is on my radar. The fact that my company will now pay for it makes it a lot more appealing.’ Egg freezing, once

reserved for cancer patients, is increasingly being sold as a Plan B for the busy working woman. Although companies in the US, including Facebook and Apple, have offered egg freezing to female employees since 2014, the UK is quickly catching up.

In September, the asset management company Blackrock announced that it would offer female employees in the US and the UK an egg-freezing package worth up to £15,000. ‘We are always looking for ways to enhance our benefits, which include support for building a family,’ says a spokesperson for Blackrock. ‘We recently announced an egg-freezing reimbursement benefit that covers egg freezing and up to three years of storage.’ Meanwhile, Japan’s biggest lender, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has begun offering leave to women working in its London office who want to freeze their eggs.

Egg freezing, or ocyte preservation, is a two to three-week process involving daily hormone injections and eggs removed via a needle into the ovary at a cost of around £3,500 plus storage fees. And it’s on the rise. Figures from the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) reveal that the number of British women freezing their eggs more than tripled in the last five years.

According to a recent survey by the Timeless project, 84% of young women believe egg freezing is ‘justifiable to improve opportunities for career progression’ and 37% believe it should be a corporate benefit. But others are asking who this ‘benefit’ really benefits – and whether companies could be offering egg freezing as a way of ensuring female employees delay having children to climb the corporate ladder.

Professor Geeta Nargund runs Create Fertility, Europe’s largest IVF clinic, in the basement of a glass building near St Paul’s in London. ‘I’m seeing a lot of women who are in their thirties and working in the City or for tech companies,’ says Nargund. ‘Many of them are paying for the treatment themselves, but a few are making enquiries because their company insurance now covers it. I believe employers should make a contribution to the cost [of egg freezing]. That said, she notes: ‘Egg freezing can be empowering because it gives women options, but if it’s a corporate benefit, then it’s important that it doesn’t become a replacement for familyfriendly working policies.’

Indeed, Anne Phillips, a professor of political and gender theory at the LSE, sees the turn towards egg freezing as a worrying solution to a problem with employment patterns. Instead of fobbing women off with perks, she says, employers need to reorganise work so that people – men and women – don’t have to choose between a career and a family. ‘Egg freezing is an individual solution to what we ought to recognise as a social problem,’ she says. Despite the introduction of shared parental leave, only 7% of British adults believe women with preschool children should have full-time jobs*, and only 25% of senior manager roles at City regulated companies are held by women**.

Meanwhile, egg freezing is marketed across the Atlantic as a way for women to get ahead in the workplace, with companies such as Eggbanxx (slogan: ‘Lean in. But freeze first’) holding ‘Let’s Chill’ events for prospective clients. Parties like this are starting to happen in the UK, too. Dr Irfana Koita holds egg-freezing parties every few months in a Mayfair restaurant – tickets to the next event in January are £49, and ‘five lucky attendees will get a free AMH home testing kit’ (AMH is a hormone produced by cells within the ovary and the test can give an idea of how many eggs are left).

‘Women who attend our parties are presented with clear factual information on which to base their own decision on whether or not the treatment is right for them,’ she says. ‘These events provide an informal, relaxed atmosphere, where like-minded individuals can learn all about the egg-freezing process and ask any questions of our specialist.’

Koita says that most of the women she meets at these events are self-funding their treatment, and doesn’t think that company policies which pay for egg freezing could encourage women to put off the decision to start a family. ‘Approximately 50% of women I treat are single and that’s why they want to freeze their eggs. It is important to recognise that this is very much a personal decision.’

Anna Kapowski, 35, from Leeds, lives in New York, where she works as a corporate lawyer. She’s currently single and froze her eggs six months ago, after her firm changed insurance providers and started covering the procedure. ‘I’m not at a point in my career or my life to have children, and I’m not even sure whether I ever want them, but I would like to have the option later down the line,’ she says. ‘The fact that my company would pay for it felt like too good an opportunity to miss.’

But she was shocked by how painful and emotional the treatment was. ‘It took me a week and a half to recover from the pain and I felt very unstable,’ she says. ‘You’re pumping your body full of hormones – it’s not a small thing. I managed to collect 30 eggs, which is a lot, but I know that just because I’ve got eggs on ice in a freezer somewhere, it’s no guarantee [of a baby later].’

In that vein, while celebrities such as Rita Ora, Sofia Vergara and Rebel Wilson talking about freezing their eggs have made the treatment appear more mainstream, it is still in its infancy in the UK. In 2017, there were 1,463 egg-freezing cycles (in comparison to almost 70,000 IVF treatment cycles overall).

Anyone thinking about the process – whether their company pays for it or not – should be aware, too, that thawing eggs and transferring them to the womb costs an additional £2,500, on average. It’s also difficult to find a clear answer about success rates for egg freezing. According to the HFEA, the live birth rate for women using their own eggs is around 18% – significantly lower than the success rate of IVF (26%).

Whether it’s hope or hype, company policies around egg freezing will at least improve the conversation about fertility. ‘This is something more women need to talk about, just like miscarriages and periods,’ says Anna. ‘It’s a feminist issue. One of my friends successfully campaigned for her company to change their policy to cover fertility treatment. A lot of my older female colleagues wish they’d known about egg freezing sooner. I’m glad I’ve frozen my eggs – I just want the decision about when and if to have children to be mine, not my body’s.’