Sarah Mahalchick and her future husband talked at one of their first meetings about the desire to adopt. There were a lot of kids out there who needed their parents, they said from the start.
But when they were ready to expand their family, they opted for fertility treatments, including IVF. It seemed to make sense: Mrs. Mahalchick’s employer would pay for a large part of the treatments through her health insurance; hardly offered help with adoption.
The benefits of fertility are almost in fashion in top-tier companies, with more companies offering help with the costs of IVF and egg freezing. But in many cases, companies offering fertility benefits do not provide financial assistance to employees who wish to adopt, and when they do, the adoption benefits are often much less generous.
Estimates of how many companies offer fertility or adoption benefits are confusing. Most employers offer neither. But the gap is clear.
The Society for Human Resource Management estimates that in 2018, 27% of employers offered some form of coverage for infertility and 11% offered assistance for adoption. FertilityIQ, a website that offers courses and other information on family building, regularly reviews benefit disclosures from thousands of employers. In a report released on Saturday, she estimates that only one in five companies that offer fertility coverage also offer adoption assistance.