Egg freezing corporate benefits and human resource development: where is the HR scholarly discourse on this topic?–nowhere is seems

On the surface, employee fertility benefits are arguably a feminist pathway to independence, offering control over fertility. Indeed, it appears employee fertility benefits are becoming a strategic attraction and retention tool for many employers. These benefits can provide female employees with viable options that will allow them to establish a career foothold without the conflicting pressures associated with family-building plans and career development opportunities. We are no longer in a war for talent but a ‘benefits arms race’. Even though innovative benefits such as egg freezing underscore talent attraction, retention, and development strategies, neither HRM nor HRD scholars have considered the long-term implications of tethering career development to female fertility and family-building plans. Career development (CD) is significant in any HRD strategy because in offering ‘talented’ female employees an innovative benefit to pause parenthood to further their careers, HRD professionals are playing a central role in providing a pathway for female employees to build careers before building families but are there unforeseen consequences in doing so? Company-sponsored egg freezing (CSEF) strategies fall within a HRD setting because they intersect long-term female productivity (and career development) with long(er)-term female reproductivity. As such, this has potential wide-ranging implications for HRD professionals, and scholars.