Egg freezing as an employment benefit? Gender, career, and reproductive health in neoliberal academia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an exploration of the intersection of gender, career and reproductive health within the context of Early Career Women Academics (ECA) experiencing neoliberal organizational practices in universities. It considers the possibility of institutional support, the financial implications of reproductive choices and the need for open discussions about fertility treatments, specifically on egg freezing and the controversies of considering sponsored egg freezing as an employment benefit. Design/methodology/approach The methodological choice for the research was a longitudinal 20-month ethnographic intermittent shadowing with an heterosexual ECA woman who decided to freeze her eggs. The reflection, analyses and findings were produced by making the ethnography to dialogue with the literature that has helped the researchers to theorize on contemporary academic life in neoliberal academia. Findings Findings illustrate broader systemic issues that affect early-career academics, particularly women, and advocate for necessary changes to support their needs and choices. The researchers posit the case of sponsored egg-freezing and the controversies that could arise if universities, following a good number of other neoliberal organizations around the world, start to offer sponsored egg-freezing as part of the benefits offered to their academic staff, in particular ECAs. Originality/value The originality of the paper resides in the discussion of a topic-sponsored egg freezing, an emerging resource of neoliberal organizational practice to “benefit” professionals and its methodological conception, based on a longitudinal ethnographic shadowing.