Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Doximity, San Francisco, California, USA.
AJOB Empir Bioeth. 2021 Jan-Mar;12(1):41-52. doi: 10.1080/23294515.2020.1823908. Epub 2020 Sep 29.
In 2014, companies began covering the costs of egg freezing for their employees. The adoption of this benefit was highly contentious. Some argued that it offered women more reproductive autonomy, buying time to succeed in their careers and postpone childbearing. Others suggested this benefit might place inappropriate pressure on women, unduly influencing them to freeze their eggs to prioritize their career over reproduction. Although ethical problems with this benefit have been explored, there has not been research analyzing the perspectives of women working for companies that offer employer-based egg freezing. Furthermore, existing empirical studies often focus on the experiences of egg freezers rather than the young women thinking about, but not yet using, this technology. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, we explore the perceptions and attitudes of 25 women employees of companies with employer-based egg freezing. These women describe delaying childbearing for a multitude of reasons, including not having a partner, and the desire to achieve social and career goals. Many women did not know that their employers covered egg freezing before the interview (44%; 11/24), suggesting this benefit is not essential to their career and family-building decisions. While women did not describe pressure to use this technology, they did describe how this benefit would not solve the difficulties of becoming a mother while excelling in their careers. Although women may not feel pressure to freeze their eggs and delay childbearing, they still feel constricted in their reproductive options. While employer programs may offer women the ability to delay childbearing, many saw this delay as postponing problems with work-life balance rather than solving them. We suggest that sociocultural shifts, such as workplace daycare, flexible workplace hours, and acceptability of non-biological parenthood, might allow women to feel more empowered about their reproduction choices.
2014 年，一些公司开始为员工支付卵子冷冻费用。这项福利的采用引起了很大争议。一些人认为，这为女性提供了更多的生殖自主权，让她们有时间在事业上取得成功并推迟生育。另一些人则认为，这种福利可能会给女性带来不适当的压力，迫使她们为了事业而冷冻卵子，从而优先考虑生育。尽管已经探讨了这项福利的伦理问题，但还没有研究分析为提供雇主资助卵子冷冻的公司工作的女性的观点。此外，现有的实证研究往往侧重于卵子冷冻者的经验，而不是关注那些正在考虑但尚未使用这项技术的年轻女性。通过深入的半结构化访谈，我们探讨了 25 名有雇主资助卵子冷冻的公司的女性员工的看法和态度。这些女性描述了由于多种原因而推迟生育，包括没有伴侣，以及追求社会和职业目标的愿望。许多女性在接受采访前并不知道雇主提供卵子冷冻（44%，11/24），这表明这项福利对她们的职业和家庭建设决策并非必不可少。尽管女性没有描述使用这项技术的压力，但她们确实描述了这项福利如何无法解决在职业上取得成功的同时成为母亲的困难。虽然女性可能不会感到冷冻卵子和推迟生育的压力，但她们仍然感到自己的生殖选择受到限制。虽然雇主计划可能为女性提供推迟生育的能力，但许多人认为这种推迟只是推迟了工作与生活平衡的问题，而不是解决了这些问题。我们认为，社会文化的转变，如工作场所日托、灵活的工作时间和非生物性父母的可接受性，可能会让女性对自己的生育选择感到更有自主权。
