Egg and Sperm Freezing: A New Era in Workplace Benefits and Healthcare?

By Faye Song, Biology student at Keble College, Oxford. Views expressed are her own.

In today’s workplace, companies are expanding their healthcare benefits, beyond the traditional offerings, to support employees in more meaningful ways. One growing focus is fertility benefits — once overlooked but now increasingly recognised as important to employee well-being.

1 in 6 people around the world are affected by infertility, and one significant challenge they face is in the workplace. From communicating private fertility struggles to managing medical appointments and costs, navigating infertility in the workplace can be distressing and difficult to balance with work. One report found one in five employees undergoing fertility treatments left their jobs because of how they were treated. Another survey showed that 60% of survey participants neglected to tell their employer the truthful reason for taking time off when attending fertility-related appointments and 83% felt fertility treatment support was as important as support given those expecting or already with children.

Despite this, one report revealed that just 27% of employers were found to have a policy for fertility treatment in place and 40% did not have a formal policy nor planned to introduce one. Moreover, of the employers that provided support, 56% of them had not communicated the policy to their employees. In addition to fertility affecting workplace performance and attitudes, job stress has also been suggested to contribute to infertility and workplace expectations or trade-offs might drive individuals to pursue fertility treatments or to delay their reproduction.

By offering more meaningful support, employers can create a more inclusive, compassionate workplace, attracting and retaining top talent. Some companies are taking fertility support a step further and include fertility cryopreservation as part of their employee healthcare benefits. Fertility cryopreservation involves extracting and freezing reproductive cells (eggs or sperm) or tissue to save for potential future reproduction. This procedure was initially offered for medical reasons, e.g. to cancer patients who might be undergoing chemotherapy and may become infertile in the process, or to certain professions, e.g. members of the Armed Forces who might want to preserve their fertility before deployment in case of injury.

Today, egg and sperm freezing are increasingly used to give individuals greater flexibility and control over when they choose to have children. However, it is an expensive process, with the procedure and storage costing an estimated £7,000 for eggs and £750 for sperm in the UK.

Employers including Alphabet, Apple, Citi, Disney, Meta, Microsoft, and Spotify cover some or all of the costs associated with egg freezing through their employee benefits packages. Beyond these employer-sponsored benefits, UK-based companies like Juniper, Fertifa and Gaia Family offer fertility support, financing, treatments, and diagnostics, helping both employers to deliver and employees to access the support they need. However, some concerns remain over whether companies are justified in offering non-medical freezing to employees.

Fertility has shifted from a medical concern to a personal concern and now a workplace issue. Employers who recognise this shift and proactively integrate fertility care into their healthcare policies will not only support their workforce but also future-proof their organizations in an increasingly competitive market.