While fertility benefits have landed on many HR teams' radars in the past two years, the military lags behind — but family-building benefits company WINFertility hopes to change that.
WINFertility has partnered with the Military Family Building Coalition, which supports military family members in creating families. Last year, this partnership brought
"Around 500 women will get WIN's nurse care managers at their call for free for three years," says Ellen Gustafson, co-founder of MFBC. "WIN's program gives these women a huge reprieve from a lot of work and a lot of heartache. That full-time job of deciding what to do [to build your family] is alleviated off your shoulders."
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As a military wife, Gustafson went through six rounds of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, while her husband was often gone on deployment and their family was stationed in different locations. She knows firsthand how difficult it is to build a family for those with an actively-serving partner — and women service members have even more barriers in their way.
While any journey to parenthood comes with its challenges, for military members the process can be especially daunting given the constant geographical changes and physical demand. Blue Star Families, an organization dedicated to supporting military families, found that 52% of military respondents feel their top challenge in family-building is military commitments and unstable lifestyles. Not to mention, their promotions are under threat if they take sudden leave.
Women need the ability to plan how and when they will build their families or the military risks losing the diversity they have gained in the last several decades, says Roger Shedlin, the CEO of WINFertility.
"Whatever journey they want to take, women shouldn't have to make a choice between career and family," he says."If you're forcing that difficult decision, you will create an underrepresentation of women in leadership."
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Notably, TRICARE, the health insurance program for uniformed service members, retirees and their families, does not cover non-coital reproductive assistance, such as egg-freezing, sperm preservation, IVF and surrogacy. While TRICARE currently pays for reproductive procedures if a loss in reproductive ability results from a service-related injury, the military does not have universal fertility benefits. And until Congress agrees to expand coverage, these barriers to care will remain, explains Gustafson.
"We have these highly skilled people choosing to serve their country, but they get no support in building a family unless they're physically together with their heterosexual partner," she says. "The cost of losing a military member because they can't have a baby and stay on active duty is much higher than keeping them in and ensuring they have access to family-building care."
Shedlin points out that much like any company, the military will have to make an effort to keep their talent — and this means having competitive benefits.
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"Employers on the civilian side recognize that family-building benefits are key to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce," says Shedlin. "We are assisting the military in achieving at least comparable if not better benefits than the private sector so the U.S. can maintain the best military in the world."
Gustafson notes that this retention of talent influences generations of military families to come. According to the Pew Research Center, 60% of veterans under 40 have an immediate family member who served, and 70% of new recruits reported having a family member in the armed forces. In other words, military families primarily fill the U.S. military's ranks.
"We are the people who produce the military of the future," says Gustafson. "If we are not making it as easy as possible for military members to have babies, it will be really hard for America to be an all-volunteer force in a couple of generations."
Ultimately, Gustafson views military family-building benefits as vital to the U.S. military's success. If women have agency in growing their families, they can choose when to take leave instead of feeling they have to walk away from the military altogether.
"Let these women have more control over when they're having a baby, so they can fly their aircrafts when America needs them," says Gustafson. "Congressional leaders should take that into account."
