Why is Netflix cutting unlimited parental leave?
The streaming giant Netflix has grown bigger and focused on profitability rather than relying on perks to attract top talent in the early days.
Laura Muller began searching for a new job in 2023 and fought her dream of starting a family.
Muller, a 38-year-old licensed veterinary technician, liked the field, but was happy to receive jobs covering in vitro fertilization or IVF treatments, including Starbucks or tractor supply. One of the first questions she asks in her job interview is, “Please tell me more about your fertility compensation?”
She won a new job as an emergency veterinary nurse, and after four rounds of intrauterine insemination – after pregnancy treatment, which placed the recovery of the prepared sperm and four eggs in the uterus, Muller’s first embryo transfer was successful. She is looking forward to a boy in June.
Muller of Philadelphia said. “I feel that was Hercules’ efforts, but it was definitely worth it.”
As the baby boomer generation retires and a new generation of workers take the central stage in the workforce, employers are reexamining the meaning of caring for employee well-being. The scope of infertility treatment and childcare benefits are the most expensive for businesses. But they are also some of the most popular perks for millennials, representing the largest segment of the US workforce, and employers have noticed.
Maven Clinic, a virtual clinic for women and family health, recently surveyed over 1,500 HR leaders and nearly 4,000 full-time employees, finding that 69% of employees are hiring, considering or hiring new jobs to improve reproduction and family benefits. The same percentage of employers plan to increase family health benefits vendors over the next two to three years.
Gallagher, an insurance and employee benefits consulting firm, created similar findings in its own report when 63% of the nearly 700 employees surveyed said they would change jobs for better benefits. Among millennials, nearly 40% are identified as parents, prioritizing the benefits of forming a family, childcare and educational support. Overall employee interest in pregnancy and pregnancy resources jumped from 5% in 2022 to 13% in 2024.
According to Kate Ryder, CEO of Maven Clinic, women aren’t the only ones who need to access fertility care. Her company began offering home sperm analysis kits last year, and she said they are extremely popular.
Kathleen Schultz, a global innovation leader for the well-being of Gallagher organizations, said the definition of family and how adults start their own is evolving. There are single parents, mixed families, adopted children, and some agents who need care.
“The way we think about family now is different from the way we thought about it 20 years ago,” Schultz said. “And employers need to lean on it in a more comprehensive way. The struggle is that the way employers want to define their families may be a little different from the regulatory bodies that define their families.”
Barbara Collura, CEO and president of Infertility Advocacy Organization Resolve, said the organization is “absolutely” seeing people switch businesses, move states, and take on a second job and access fertility benefits.
“If you’re struggling to build your family, and if you’re told that the only option for you to get the opportunity to have kids is a treatment from $15,000 to $25,000 from your pocket, then it’s $15,000 to $25,000 per cycle…it’s a tall order,” Collura said.
Sister CEO goes viral for reporting on parenting “want to do more” for working moms
Another consulting firm, Mercer, found that more employers cover other family benefits, such as IVF and paid parental leave. In a Mercer survey of 630 US organizations, 62% offer bereavement leave due to pregnancy loss, and 58% offer bereavement leave due to miscarriage.
Taylor Capuano, who co-founded Cakes Body, an alternative bra brand, with her sister, said offering women and family-focused benefits is a top priority for the company that has grown from 10 to 30 employees last year. The video of the sisters who announced full childcare compensation for employees with children who are too young to go to school went viral in May.
The woman who answered the video was emotional, Capuano said. Most female workers have proven that they do not feel they have seen or heard from their employers. She knows that this is not the case when she worked in Corporate America.
“I looked at my expenses and said, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t think I’d think I could stay in the workforce,” because even working to raise a child was pretty much broken,” she said.
“It has always been my goal to be able to create an environment where I could afford to live and be a mother personally,” she said. “But I really didn’t think we had employees.”
Capuano said she and her sister are still trying to figure out best practices for creating a fostering work environment for parents. They encourage flexible working hours, allowing parents to avoid family responsibility. They also offer four months of full-paid parental leave, which is unusual. Cake Body’s new Childcare scholarship policy also covers up to $3,000 per month. This is enough to support the childcare of two children in most states.
Cakebody still has no fertility coverage, Capuano said, but she and her sister said they “want to do more” for the women and parent workers.
Some families worry that having children is outside their budget
According to a Mercer survey of over 2,000 employers, IVF was covered by 47% of large employers with at least 500 employees in 2024, and 47% of large employers with at least 500 employees in 2024. Of the large companies with over 20,000 employees, 70% cover IVF.
“Part of that has to do with attractiveness and retention,” said Lindsay Bauer, senior principal of Mercer’s Health and Benefits team. “Especially in an industry where you’re really competing for talent.”
Gallagher reports that the most common reason employers don’t offer fertility treatment scope is cost. A report from Maven Clinic found that the financial burden of infertility treatment has reached its breaking point. Employers who already provide fertility coverage are concerned about rising costs, with 28% of employees pursuing fertility treatment in debt to cover the costs.
Christina Parker is well aware of the eye-opening costs of IVF. After the 2021 diagnosis of cervical cancer caused the loss of fallopian tubes, Parker knew that more affordable intrauterine insemination was no longer an option. She and her wife must pay for the IVF to carry the child.
Parker was worried that out-of-pocket costs would fall outside her price range. Treatment of fertility, where eggs are collected from the ovaries, fertilized by sperm in the lab and transferred to the uterus, can run for more than $10,000 per cycle, with some patients requiring multiple cycles to ensure a successful birth.
After digging, she learns that Walgreens, a pharmacy chain, offers fertility compensation and that she is located 10 minutes from the house she employed from Asheville, North Carolina. The role of a pharmacy technician was $6 cheaper per hour than her hotel work, and although Parker had no industry experience, she decided to give it a try.
That worked. Parker was hired in 2022 to start IVF, and after two failed rounds, he gave birth to a son in May 2023.
Parker, 29, estimates that she and her wife spent about $7,000 from her pocket on three IVF cycles, including genetic testing before intervention. An estimated $75,000 was covered by insurance.
Now it appears she will check if a potential employer has fertility benefits or obstetric care before applying.
“If I don’t, I might not go,” Parker said.
Madeline Mitchell’s role in covering women and caregiving economy at USA Today is supported by partnership with An extremely important venture and Journalism Funding Partner. Funders do not provide editor input. You reach Madeline with memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ x.
