Swiss companies cover egg-freezing costs for work-life balance

According to experts, increasingly more women in Switzerland are having their eggs frozen as a precautionary measure. © Keystone / Michael Buholzer

The first companies in Switzerland are covering the costs of egg freezing.

Since October began, multiple companies, including the pharmaceutical giant Merck, have started covering the expenses associated with egg freezing for female employees opting for this precautionary measure.

Florian Schick, president of Merck Switzerland, highlighted this initiative as a key component of fostering a better work-life balance during an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. The overarching goal is to contribute to the establishment of a more inclusive and diverse working environment.

+In Switzerland, having a child is becoming a luxury

However, this is not without ethical problems, Markus Zimmermann, Vice President of the National Ethics Committee (NEK) in the field of human medicine, told Keystone-SDA. “We at the National Ethics Committee are rather sceptical about this,” said the ethicist. He fears that this could create constraints. In addition, it would be too much interference by the employer in private life.

+Swiss government takes childcare in hand

According to experts, increasingly more women in Switzerland are having their eggs frozen as a precautionary measure. The cost of this procedure is around CHF 10,000 ($11,309).

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].