For career-driven women who envision a family with multiple children, the law is limiting, say mums.
Chelsea Bain, who lives in Mersch, spoke to RTL Today about her experience of applying for both maternity and parental leave on finding out she was pregnant. After leaving her job at Amazon in December 2024, Chelsea took a two-week break before taking up a new role in January. During that window between changing jobs she discovered she was expecting her second child.
The talent acquisition director at her new employer said she contacted the CNS to start the process of applying for maternity leave and the subsequent parental leave she planned on taking. Chelsea was left reeling when she was initially told that she didn't meet the requirements for either. This, she states, was due to the brief gap of 10 working days in her social contributions.
Financially unprepared
Chelsea describes the moment as “terrifying” – the realisation that she could be without her salary for five months. "I was on the precipice of reaching out to my bank to put my mortgage on hold. I am the main breadwinner, and we just can't afford to lose my income,” she points out.
She went looking for advice from other mums on a WhatsApp group and was told the opposite; she was indeed eligible for maternity leave because she had fulfilled the requirement of working six months out of the preceding 12. Through this group she also learned of some "horrible stories" where parents had been denied parental leave following a gap in their social contributions because of being laid off.
On contacting the CNS again to query her entitlement, her eligibility to maternity leave was later confirmed. Admittedly relieved at the time, Chelsea says she still questions what would have happened had she not pushed her case with the CNS.
Parental leave
However, the 10-day gap in Chelsea’s social contributions had ramifications for qualifying for parental leave, which she had planned to take later this year.
“I wasn't, unfortunately, eligible for parental leave until I had completed a full year because I had taken more than seven days off between jobs.”
According to guichet.lu, to qualify for parental leave a person must have been affiliated to the Luxembourg social security system on the basis of an employment contract for at least 12 consecutive months prior to the start of the parental leave. If there are any interruptions in registration in the 12-month period preceding the leave, the combined duration of the interruptions in the 12-month period may not exceed 7 days.
For example, someone who has worked 15 years without interruption, could potentially not benefit from parental leave due to a gap of eight days in their preceding twelve-month work history.
Chelsea notes that in her case she is fortunate and there is a silver lining. “My husband can take the first parental leave, and I can pick up after him.” However, she believes that the rule needs to be revised, describing it as “insane”.
The system, she says, should consider a person’s entire career rather than imposing the narrow seven-day rule. “It doesn't take into consideration how long you have worked in the country and how much tax you have paid. It’s a strict line of if you have had a break of more than seven days you are not eligible [for parental leave] until you have worked another year.”
Change
Aisling McCaffrey is a mum of one living in Luxembourg city and has also fallen foul of the system. She explains that she initially “dodged a bullet” after switching jobs in September 2022.
She planned to take some time off between roles but her new employer insisted she start straight away; a twist of fate she was grateful for when she found out shortly after she was pregnant with her first child.
“Luckily... I didn't have a gap in my work history, so I was able to take maternity leave starting in May 2023, followed by parental leave a few months later. However, if I had taken a gap in between roles – which I wanted to do – I would have been disqualified for parental leave," she affirms.
Despite things working out initially, Aisling’s career “in the volatile startup world” has meant she has since faced lay-offs. This, she says, has reset her “clock of qualifying for parental leave”, due to a break of longer than seven days in her social contributions. Consequently, this will have a knock-on effect on family planning.
Reform
Chelsea and Aisling want to help other working parents avoid the trap they fell into and are calling on Luxembourg lawmakers to expand the criteria for parental leave eligibility by recognising long-term employment history.
They argue that the current system does not reflect the modern realities of career paths, where short breaks or brief contractual gaps can disqualify parents from accessing parental leave when they may want to take it.
According to them, some working parents are being unfairly excluded despite having a consistent employment record over the long term.
They are proposing more flexibility be given to parental leave eligibility by introducing multiple employment history tiers, rather than requiring a strict 12-month uninterrupted period.
The rule as it currently stands, causes individuals and couples to delay family planning based on job changes, leading to a lower birth rate overall, they believe.
“For those who have children in this situation, infants lose out on valuable time with their parent(s) who cannot legally benefit from parental leave, or afford to take unpaid leave, causing the child to lose critical bonding time in their formative first months, and suffer a reduction in the long-term success of breastfeeding.
“For others who maintain employment diligently in order to meet the requirements, they are faced with reduced career opportunities, requiring them to stay in a potentially unfulfilling role or decline a promotion opportunity in a new organisation in order to maintain an uninterrupted employment contract. This represents a combined psychological and financial impact created by policies, not individuals’ abilities or skills.”
Career-driven
As career-driven mothers who envision families with multiple children, they describe the current law as limiting. “It doesn't hold up to the reality of how careers work nowadays. The path to success involves moving roles every couple of years to secure promotions.”
The mothers say they are currently working on a petition calling for reform of the eligibility system.
RTL Today contacted the CNS in relation to Chelsea’s claim about not being advised correctly about her entitlement to maternity leave. It stated: “The agents of the department concerned are well trained and able to give a correct answer.”
