Taiwanese women opt to freeze their eggs
Print Edition
Caught between traditional expectations and career pressures, working women in Taiwan are increasingly opting to freeze their eggs at fertility clinics as they postpone marriage and motherhood.
Women play a big part in Taiwan’s workforce, trailing only New Zealand and Australia for female employment among 14 countries and regions in Asia, a recent report showed.
A slowdown in the economy has made job security an even more pressing priority. That has been a factor in pushing Taiwan’s average marriage age to 30 these days, from 24 in the 1980s, and in driving the interest in egg freezing.
“I was not sure when my ovaries would start degenerating but I was sure that I would probably marry late and I was sure that I wanted to become a mother,” said Linn Kuo, 34, who chose to freeze her eggs three years ago.
Kuo, a manager at Cisco System Taiwan Ltd, has a well-paid job that allows her to work from home. While her career has had a smooth trajectory, Kuo said she has not been as lucky in her love life. After her mother died, she realized the importance of having the support of children in later life. “I already had my conclusion,” she said. “So I did some research and decided to freeze my eggs.”
Lai Hsing-hua, the clinic director at e-Stork Reproduction Center in the city of Hsinchu, said he realized the need for egg-freezing services when many patients asked for egg donors after a late marriage.
“We thought if they had frozen their eggs earlier, maybe they wouldn’t need to use donated eggs,” he said. “That’s why we combined in-vitro fertilization with the idea of prevention — prevent them from using others’ eggs after their fertility has deteriorated.”
The clinic now gets more than 100 phone calls a month asking about egg freezing. Five years ago, it did just 20 of the procedures. It handled more than 70 in 2011 and more than 40 in the first six months this year.
The technology has matured and the embryo now has a high survival rate with egg freezing. The service costs around 80,000 Taiwan dollars (US$2,680) and the whole process of retrieving the egg takes 20 minutes.
“Married women are like candles burning at both ends,” Chen Fen-ling, a professor of social work at the Taipei University, said. “We say that women work two jobs. They make money with a daytime job but, when they go back home, they take care of their children and parents-in-law. This pressure often makes women hesitate when making the decision about marriage.”
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