A pop-up store promoting egg freezing opened near Seongsu Station, Seongsu-dong, a trendy Seoul neighborhood popular among locals on August 12. A large pink banner covering the front of the four-story building read “Freezing Now.” The pop-up store, organized by Maria Fertility Hospital, a well-known hospital in Seoul specializing in infertility treatment, attracted over 10,000 women seeking information on the procedure by August 20. The store’s staff, all in their 20s, were offering consultations on egg freezing, asking visitors questions such as “What is most important to you right now?”
“I thought egg freezing was a complicated procedure, but after the consultation, it seems safer than I imagined,” said a woman who visited the pop-up store. Visitors asked questions such as “Can I undergo the procedure if I have endometriosis?” “Is egg freezing possible with an irregular menstrual cycle?” “Are there any side effects?” The staff reassured the women that “frozen eggs do not negatively affect fertilization or childbirth.”
Collecting a woman’s eggs costs around 3 million won ($2200), with annual storage fees ranging from 200,000 to 300,000 won.
Oocyte cryopreservation, commonly known as egg freezing, was once reserved for extreme situations like a terminal illness diagnosis. However, women in their 20s and 30s who are delaying marriage and childbirth are now embracing the procedure as a proactive measure.
The number of frozen eggs stored at medical institutions across South Korea has surged from 40,000 in 2020 to 100,000 in 2023. As the average age of first-time employment, marriage, and childbirth has been pushed back, more women are seeking to preserve their eggs while they are still young. In Korea, the average age of mothers who gave birth to their first child was 33 last year, the highest among the 38 OECD countries.
“I have invested so much energy into my education and career that marriage isn’t on my mind right now,” said a 30-year-old woman surnamed Joo. “But I might want to get married or have a child even in my 40s, so egg freezing is an appealing option,” she added.
“Children born from frozen eggs are growing up healthy, and we have seen women successfully give birth to their first and second children using frozen eggs,” said Joo Chang-woo, the deputy director of Maria Fertility Hospital.
Experts highlight the close link between a woman’s fertility and her age, noting that while the average age for first-time mothers is now 31.5, it is no longer uncommon for women to give birth around the age of 40. “Eggs age much faster than the uterus,” said one gynecologist, “so it is advantageous to collect and preserve young eggs in the early 30s, when a woman’s fertility is still intact, especially for those planning to marry later.”
Women are born with around 1 million to 2 million eggs, but the number decreases as they age, making it more difficult to collect eggs for IVF. This is why experts suggest freezing eggs in advance for those considering marriage or childbirth later in life.
Sperm banking, or semen cryopreservation, is also gaining traction as men marry later in life. With overwork, drinking, and smoking taking a toll on male fertility, experts are increasingly pointing out that the cause of infertility also lies with men. “Many causes of infertility today are found in men who have been weakened by overwork or bad habits such as excessive drinking and smoking,” said a specialist at a fertility clinic. “More than half of infertility cases are caused by men, so we need to expand fertility clinics targeting male patients as well.”
