‘Freeze your eggs, free your career’: Hong Kong firm offers staff HK$280,000 baby incentive

A Hong Kong biopharmaceutical company has offered a subsidy of HK$280,000 (US$35,850) to each of its employees to encourage them to start families while advancing their careers at the same time, in a bid to help boost the city’s birth rate.

Tony Cheng Sai-lung, the managing director of Merck Hong Kong & Macau, said on Friday that employees usually faced an overlap between the prime periods for career advancement and starting families.

“Freeze your eggs and free your career,” Cheng said. “That’s why throughout this initiative, we hope to give employees enough freedom and financial support to start their family yet advance their career all at once.”

The subsidies were part of the “Family Matters Initiative” launched by the Merck Group, NGO Primary Care Education Foundation and Bowtie Life Insurance Company.

“While encouraging the quality business environment of Hong Kong, private enterprises should also shoulder part of their social responsibility by encouraging their staff to organise their families and contribute to the long-term development of Hong Kong,” a joint statement by the three institutions said.

Employees could be reimbursed up to HK$280,000 for treatments such as in vitro fertilisation, egg freezing, ovulation induction and infertility treatment. Male employees would also be eligible for money to reimburse them for applicable treatments.

“All employees at Merck will be able to receive this subsidy as soon as their second day of their onboarding,” Cheng added.