In July 2015, the Maternity Leave Trust Fund was established, and employers who had pregnant female employees and paid them fourteen weeks of maternity leave could get a reimbursement for the wage costs incurred during this period.

This helped to eliminate possible discrimination against women since as employers pay a minimum contribution for every employee irrespective of the sex, to remove any disincentive leading employers to employ a man instead of a woman. The criteria of choosing an employee is to be based on the individual skills of the candidate.

The Trust Fund is also used to compensate for adoption leave in terms of the Adoption Leave National Standard Order.

As from 2nd August 2022, this Trust Fund was adjusted so as to include the Work-Life Balance entitlements set up by Legal Notice 201 of 2022. Thus the Maternity Trust Fund was adjusted to Work Life Balance Fund to include reimbursement of wages during the paternity and parental paid leave in cases of birth and adoption and in the case of parental the benefits are extended to fostering too. For more information on these benefits visit here​.

This is not the case. No employee pays any contribution for this system.

The Tenth Schedule of the Social Security Act determines the contribution due by each employer for each of his/her employees. This contribution goes into a special fund, which eventually is used to reimburse employers paying employees on maternity leave, and with recent amendments, fostering leave, parental/adoption leave and paternity/paternity-adoption leave. In order to ensure that this contribution is aimed for this objective, a new line features in the monthly return form that employers send to the Inland Revenue Department. This indicates the amount that the employer has paid for this special fund.

In order to have transparency, the Board of the fund is made up of three members representing the employers and one member representing the Unions.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry for Finance and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry responsible for Industrial Relations are ex-officio members. The Board ensures that employers pay their respective contribution and that from time to time revise the contribution rate as necessary.

When this measure was introduced, the Ministry of Finance had made an in depth analysis of the pregnancy rate and the number of women applying for maternity leave; the fertility rate; the wages and salaries that were being paid to women employees benefitting from this leave and the total amount of employees that include both men and women. This exercise was carried out among private sector employees only. From this analysis, it was established that the contribution rate had to be that of zero point three per cent (0.3%) of the basic salary. This contribution rate may be revised.

While employers are bound to pay those who apply for maternity leave, adoption leave, fostering leave, parental/adoption leave and paternity/paternity-adoption leave, no reimbursement is paid if it transpires that pay contributions were in actual fact not paid. Moreover, employers are subject to penalties and fines under the provision of the Social Security Act.