Cwhat would you do, dear readers, What if the company you work for covered the cost of freezing your eggs? This is what has been happening for some time in many international companies encourage workers to delay motherhoodtaking advantage of a sort of parachute.
When the company freezes the eggs
At first glance it might seem (and in part it is) a way to make this quite expensive practice accessible to everyone: in Italy the average expense is around 3,500 euros, net of annual conservation.
Having said this, the implication which is tragically unequivocal cannot escape us: «Please know that when you go on maternity leave, we will not be able to do anything to safeguard your career. Think about it» the company seems to suggest. Which in this way frees itself from the responsibility of implementing active policy tools to defend working mothers.
Opportunity or danger?
Decades of talking about equal opportunities, maternity assistance, mandatory leave, smart working, to get to this point. The dramatic implications are revealed when the decision is made to fertilize the eggswith that sad lottery in which one has limited chances available, after which desperation often sets in.
So, think that freezing can actually prolong our reproductive lifeas far as science allows us today, it is still decidedly illusory.
So why is this practice becoming more and more popular among young women? The first reason is the one we suggested at the beginning: there is the awareness that putting one’s career on hold to dedicate oneself to a child, in some countries, certainly ours, it is still a risk.
But there is also another reason: the desire to wait for the right partner to have a child, without giving in to the tyranny of the biological clock. This anxiety is typical of a generation of highly cultured women (let’s say from Millennials onwards) who struggle to find suitable partners.
In the USA it is a consolidated phenomenon that is multiplying the number of singles by choice, with the consequent reduction in birth rates. After all, if you freeze your eggs, you can do the same with your heart.
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