Facebook and Apple are offering women employees the chance to put their dreams of motherhood on ice – by paying for them to freeze their eggs.

The extraordinary perk is aimed at boosting the number of women staff by allowing them to focus on their careers without sacrificing the opportunity to have children later in life。

The Silicon Valley giants – the first major employers to offer the procedure for non-medical reasons – are willing to pay £12,500 a time to cover the cost of putting the eggs on ice plus an additional £300-a-year for deep freeze storage。

The eggs can then be planted into the patient’s uterus at time of her choosing when she may no longer be producing them naturally. According to NBC News, Facebook has begun paying for egg freezing and Apple will start in January。

Preserving eggs has been described as a key to ‘levelling the playing field’ in the male-dominated tech industry and a possible game-changer for women who have traditionally had to choose between their careers and starting a family at a time when their male counterparts are climbing the ladder. ‘Having a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do,’ Brigitte Adams, an egg-freezing advocate and founder of the patient forum Eggsurance.com, told NBC。

‘By offering this benefit, companies are investing in women and supporting them in carving out the lives they want,’ she added。

Paying for the procedure can be seen as rewarding women employees for their commitment, said San Francisco specialist Philip Chenette. Women who know they want children someday ‘can go on with their lives and know that they’ve done everything that they can’。

In the past year, fertility doctors in New York and San Francisco report that egg freezing cases have nearly doubled。

In a 2013 survey published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, a majority of patients who had their eggs frozen reported feeling ‘empowered.’

The fact that two of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are introducing the initiative is no coincidence. Tech giants are fighting for talented staff in what has become known as the ‘perk arms race’。

Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, in particular, is known for her pro-women stance。

The social media firm gives new parents £3,000 in so-called ‘baby cash’ to spend however they like. Both firms also offer generous wellness-orientated benefits to staff。

Critics say the move is simply a ploy to persuade women to stay with the company。

Last night an Apple source indicated the company had no plans to extend the policy to the firm’s UK workforce。

An Apple spokesman in the US said: ‘We want to empower women at Apple to do the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families.’

However Harvard Law School academic Glenn Cohen, asked: ‘Would potential female associates [staff] welcome this option knowing that they can work hard early on and still reproduce, if they so desire, later on?

'Or would they take this as a signal that the firm thinks that working there as an associate and pregnancy are incompatible?’

据《每日邮报》报道，苹果公司和Facebook出台了新政策，为公司女员工出资冷冻卵子以了却她们迟些做母亲的梦想。

花费这笔不菲的费用旨在吸引更多的女性人才，冷冻卵子可以让女员工们专注于事业而又不耽误她们迟些生宝宝。

这两大硅谷科技巨头公司提出愿意报销卵子冷冻操作过程的一次性费用12,500英镑(合12万1714元)以及每年的深层冷冻存储费用300英镑(2921元)。这两家公司可能是美国大企业当中首批为出于非医疗原因冷冻卵子的女员工支付这一费用的。

冷冻卵子后，女员工可以自行选择时间提出卵子植入子宫，这样即使她已不能自然排卵时也能怀孕。据美国全国广播公司(NBC News)报道，Facebook最近已开始落实这一福利，苹果则将于明年1月开始。

冷冻卵子被称作是“平衡男性主导的科技行业男女比例”的关键，也可能因此改写以往的游戏规则：男性可以专注于事业，而同样处于事业上升期的女性却必须在事业和家庭之间选一个。“身居要职和当一个好妈妈目前仍不能两全，”布里吉特•亚当斯(Brigitte Adams)这样告诉NBC的记者，她是冷冻卵子计划的支持者之一，也是美国“卵保”论坛(Eggsurance.com)的创始人。

“公司的这一福利是在为女员工投资，也是支持她们去追寻自己想要的生活，”她补充道。

旧金山生殖医学专家菲利普•钱内特(Philip Chenette)表示，报销冷冻卵子费用可视为对女员工敬业精神的回馈。有了这项福利，有未来受孕计划的女性便“可以继续她们眼下的生活，并且清楚自己已做好了足够准备。”

而纽约和旧金山的生育医生则称冷冻卵子的人数在去年几乎翻了一倍。

2013年美国期刊《生育与不孕》(Fertility and Sterility)的一项调查显示，接受了卵子冷冻的大多数女性表示她们感觉“自己的权利得到了保障”。

而这两大硅谷科技巨头公司带头出台新福利政策绝非偶然。如今科技行业的人才争夺战愈演愈烈，各大公司都在为“振奋士气”进行福利博弈。

Facebook的首席运营官雪莉•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)尤其以其女性主义立场著称。

这家社交媒体企业(Facebook)为初为父母的员工提供3000英镑(合29240元)的“宝贝基金”随他们使用。而苹果和Facebook两家公司都为员工设立了各种健康福利。

评论家们称两大公司的这一举动简单来讲就是为了留住女性人才的一个策略。

但昨晚从苹果传来消息称公司目前并没有计划将这一政策推广到英国部门。

苹果公司的美国发言人称：“我们希望以此鼓励苹果的女员工们发挥最好的工作状态，但同时又能兼顾爱人和家庭。”

然而哈佛大学法学院(Harvard Law School)的学者格伦•科恩(Glenn Cohen)却对此表示了质疑：“不知道女性员工们对此会有何看法;她们会赞成现在拼命工作然后晚点儿再生宝宝，还是会据此认定企业仍然觉得工作和怀孕不能兼顾?”