Facebook and Apple are offering to help cover costs for female employees to freeze their eggs. Both companies offered to pay $20,000 to aid employees with the procedure and storage costs. Facebook has already instated this new benefit; Apple will in January.

“We want to empower women at Apple to do the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families,” an Apple press release stated.

Facebook and Apple introduced the perks to female employees in order to encourage them to work longer. When female employees have children, many quit their job. With this new option in place, Facebook and Apple offer their female staff more options, hoping to curb employee loss due to childbirth.

Facebook and Apple introduced this new perk to female employees even as women wait longer than ever to have children.

The average age of first-time mothers in the United States in 2012 was 25.8 years old, compared to 24.9 in 2000, and 21 in 1970. These numbers are low compared to other countries because of America’s high teen birth rate. If the American teenage birth rate resembled other countries’ teenage birth rates, the average first-time mother American would be closer to 30 years old.

Not only has the average age of first-time mothers in the U.S. increased, but the fertility rate has plummeted. Fertility rate is measured by births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. In 1909, the fertility rate was 127, meaning 127 births per 1,000 women. In 1957, it fell to 122.7. In 2013, it was 62.9—a 50 percent decrease from 1909.

In addition, the average births per American woman in 2013 was 1.86. In order for a society to sustain itself, women must average 2.1 births. The last time this was the case in America was 2007. Women no longer bear enough children to maintain the American population.

Whether companies like Facebook and Apple directly encourage women to wait to have children or not, they certainly make it easier by paying to freeze employee eggs. Many women increasingly prioritize careers over families.

Trumpet columnists Joel Hilliker and Stephen Flurry wrote in 2009, “After decades of surrendering ground to a violent and fanatical enemy, what once was a solid family structure is now struggling for survival.” To learn more about the deteriorating family read “The War Against Family.”