The televised presidential primary debates are opportunities for candidates to speak directly to viewers, and for voters to hear from each presidential hopeful. Ultimately, voters expect to walk away with a better understanding of who the candidates are, what they value, and their plans.

However, based on the past 123 primary debates, dating from 1996 to 2016, voters have not had a clear view of where candidates stand on issues affecting the well-being and economic security of families and women. According to a 2019 analysis by TIME’S UP, moderators have failed to consistently ask questions about paid leave, childcare, gender-based pay discrimination, and gender-based harassment. In a ten-year span, only eight of the 4,000 questions touched upon any one of these issues.

Gender justice and work-family policies concern a large portion of the American electorate—particularly, women. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, since 1964, the number of female voters has outnumbered the number of male voters in every presidential election. And since 1980, the proportion of eligible women who have voted has surpassed the proportion of eligible men who have voted. Regardless of their race and age, female voters agree that issues like paid leave, childcare, and workplace discrimination are important to not only them, but also to their families. A 2019 YWCA survey found that 90 percent of surveyed women believed that equal pay was an important issue and 89 percent believed that lawmakers needed to prioritize paid family and medical leave policies. Eighty-six percent wanted to see the prioritization of solutions for affordable and accessible childcare.

These issues matter not only to women, but also to men. In our 2019 report about men and paid leave, Lifting the Barriers to Paid Family and Medical Leave, which included a national survey of 2,966 adults, the Better Life Lab found that 48 percent of the fathers surveyed had taken time off to care for a newborn and 28 percent of working men had taken time off work to care for a family member. We also found that nearly half of all parents did not take time off from work to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, and that 60 percent of respondents anticipated needing paid leave in the future. Given how important work-family policies and gender justice in the workplace are to U.S. workers and their families, how have candidates in the run up to the 2020 presidential election addressed these concerns?

This analysis tracked how often candidates and moderators spotlighted childcare, the gender pay gap, gender-based workplace harassment, and paid family and medical leave, which affect the lives of millions of voters and their loved ones, in the 2019-2020 Democratic presidential primary debates.

Although candidates and moderators mentioned childcare in every single debate, the number of times they raised the issue (42 times) paled in comparison to the number of times they mentioned another determinant of economic security—college affordability (77 times). Overall, candidates and moderators barely mentioned issues tied to work-family policy or workplace gender justice.

Candidates’ references to these issues ranged from brief to substantive. When discussing childcare and gender discrimination more deeply, some candidates shared their personal stories to connect with working families. Others challenged their fellow candidates to commit to the values undergirding the issues. Some candidates connected their thoughts on childcare, the gender pay gap, gender-based workplace harassment, and paid family and medical leave to the overarching narratives driving their campaigns. Candidate responses demonstrate the universality of these issues, which impact people of all genders, regardless of age, socioeconomic status, and race.

As the presidential primary field narrowed down to two contenders, the public discourse around two of these issues, namely childcare and paid family and medical leave, intensified in light of the coronavirus pandemic, also referred to as COVID-19, now a public health and economic crisis. Public health officials have explained that in addition to frequent hand-washing and disinfecting, community members need to practice social distancing to slow the rate of transmission. That means working from home and closing schools. These changes have impacted working Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum, especially those without paid sick days, paid family and medical leave, and accessible childcare.

Under pressure from consumers, workers, and constituents, legislators and businesses have taken action, drafting or updating policies to support workers, families and businesses. During the eleventh Democratic presidential primary debate, the two remaining candidates vying for the Democratic nomination—Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—discussed how they would address the economic challenges posed by COVID-19. In their responses, they both acknowledged the hardship many families would face and addressed the need for some form of wage replacement and financial support. Still, although each has plans that include providing paid sick days and paid family and medical leave during this crisis and beyond, neither candidate explicitly discussed these much needed policies during the debate itself. Coronavirus has intensified the push for policies that support workers and their families, not only for times of crisis, but also in light of life's daily challenges. In 2020, and especially during this pandemic, work-family support, in addition to gender justice, are the policy issues that are top of mind for American voters.

A thorough analysis of ten 2019-2020 Democratic presidential primary debates ultimately illustrates the continued lack of attention candidates and moderators give to work-family and workplace gender justice policy issues. However, the findings of this analysis should serve as motivation for continued conversations about the well-being and economic security of families, caregivers, and workers, not only on the debate stage, but also on the campaign trail, in living rooms, at polling stations, within the halls of Congress, and inside the Oval Office.

What exactly were we measuring? We tracked mentions of two major issues in work-family justice: childcare and paid family and medical leave. We also tracked issues related to gender justice in the workplace: gender discrimination (manifested as the gender pay gap), and gender-based harassment. These policy topics parallel our candidate tracking snapshot. Throughout our analysis, we will refer to work-family and gender workplace justice policy issues using the short-hand, gender-work-family policy issues.

Using transcripts available online, we tracked mentions at the following 10 debates:

June 26-27, 2019: Debate 1 (Miami, Florida)

July 30-31, 2019: Debate 2 (Detroit, Michigan)

September 12, 2019: Debate 3 (Houston, Texas)

October 15, 2019: Debate 4 ( Westerville, Ohio)

November 20, 2019: Debate 5 (Atlanta, Georgia)

December 19, 2019: Debate 6 (Los Angeles, California)

January 14, 2020: Debate 7 (Des Moines, Iowa)

February 7, 2020: Debate 8 (Manchester, New Hampshire)

February 19, 2020: Debate 9 (Las Vegas, Nevada)

February 25, 2020: Debate 10 (Charleston, South Carolina)

Who were we interested in? Moderators and candidates. To a large extent, candidates’ own comments were limited by the questions moderators asked them. That’s why every time a topic was raised by a moderator, we tallied it as a mention. Even if the same question was posed to different candidates, each iteration was still counted as an individual mention. Similarly, every time a candidate raised an issue, either in response to a question directly about one of the four issues, or in response to a question that wasn’t about one of the four issue areas, we counted it as a mention.

We omitted a number of candidates in this analysis because they had no mentions throughout the debates–either because they were not asked about the issues or in the absence of direct questions, did not raise the issues themselves. Consequently, their inclusion would not change the outcome of the findings nor provide content for in-depth analysis.

To illustrate the significance of our findings, we compared the number of times candidates and moderators mentioned college affordability to the number of times they discussed gender-work-family policies on the debate stage. We chose to track college affordability as a baseline for comparison because it is part of the discourse around economic opportunity, social mobility, and financial security—similar to childcare, paid family and medical leave, equal pay, and workplace harassment. Furthermore, college affordability has been seen as more gender neutral and less family-oriented than the issues we tracked.

In addition to counting the number of times candidates and moderators mentioned issues, we also analyzed the substance of all candidate responses, labeling them non-substantive or substantive. To qualify as substantive, comments met at least one of the following criteria: referenced facts or figures, discussed strategies for implementation, incorporated personal anecdotes, or sparked further conversations between candidates.

Over the course of ten debates—between June 26, 2019 and February 25, 2020–candidates and moderators barely mentioned equal pay, gender-based harassment, or paid family and medical leave. However, they raised the issue of college affordability 77 times.

Cost of College: 77 mentions

In every single debate, candidates debated the cost of a college education. In their discussions, they recognized the need to solve the student debt crisis and proposed solutions that ranged from lowering tuition to promising free tuition. In almost every debate (eight out of ten), moderators posed questions about college affordability. Debate six, on December 19, 2019, had the most mentions on this issue, totaling 13.

Childcare: 42 mentions

Childcare was the only work-family policy issue that was mentioned in every debate. Early on, during the second debate in Detroit, female candidates—Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)—each raised the issue. The seventh debate featured the most mentions: ten in total. Throughout the debate, some candidates—particularly Warren—mentioned the issue regardless of whether moderators asked about it.

Equal Pay: 12 mentions

Equal pay, or the gender-based pay gap, was only mentioned in five of the ten debates. The first question about equal pay was posed to former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sec. Julian Castro during the first debate in Miami on June 26, 2019. The issue received the most attention during the second debate in Detroit; altogether, candidates and moderators mentioned equal pay five times.

Gender-Based Workplace Harassment: 9 mentions

Harassment was rarely mentioned during the debate cycle. Notably, the fifth debate in Atlanta on November 20, 2019, had a slate of all female moderators—and one of the moderators asked a pointed question about the issue. The ninth and tenth debates on February 19 and 25 stood out because during those nights, the issue received the most air time. The issue took center stage due to the controversy involving the gender-based workplace harassment allegations against former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Sen. Warren’s demand that he release the involved parties from the nondisclosure agreements his company required them to sign. During the ninth and tenth debates, candidates spent four and five minutes discussing the topic, respectively.

Paid Family and Medical Leave: 9 mentions

This issue came up twice during the first debate in Miami and once during the second debate in Detroit. Mentions peaked during the fifth debate in Atlanta when moderators asked one question about it. Moderators and candidates did not bring up the issue again during the remainder of debates despite the fact that virtually all working people will need paid leave from work to care for a loved one or themselves at some point in their lives.

Warren was the leading voice on childcare throughout the primary campaigns. In February 2019, she released her plan for universal childcare, articulating her platform well in advance of her fellow candidates. Our analysis shows that she mentioned the need for affordable childcare fifteen times, and is responsible for nearly 36 percent of all total mentions.

Beginning with the second night of the first debate in Miami on June 27, 2019, Warren continuously raised the issue in some fashion, whether in an opening or closing statement, in response to a direct question, or indirectly, connecting it to another topic. In addition to Warren, Klobuchar also mentioned the issue on multiple occasions–seven times over the course of the ten debates. The comments made by these two candidates alone made up more than 50 percent of all childcare mentions. Both senators played a role in ensuring that the issue of affordable childcare had a place within the larger discourse happening on stage.

Candidates’ mentions ranged from non-substantive to substantive in nature. On several occasions, candidates couched their plans and discussions of gender-work-family issues within their own personal narratives. And when they sought to challenge their fellow contenders, they focused on the values—not necessarily the policies—related to these issues, harkening back to their colleagues' past actions and seizing upon existing controversies about their backgrounds. Regardless of how they mentioned gender-work-family policy issues, most candidates connected their thoughts on childcare, the gender pay gap, gender-based workplace harassment, and paid family and medical leave to the overarching themes of their campaigns.

Personal narratives played a role in shaping how some candidates framed and discussed the issue of affordable and accessible childcare. By sharing their personal experiences, candidates acknowledged the economic hardships and circumstances of working parents and caregivers.

During the seventh debate in Iowa on January 14, 2020, Warren shared a story about how she would have struggled to advance in her career as a professor if not for the help of her Aunt Bee.

But understand this about the plan. I've been there. You know, I remember when I was a young mom. I had two little kids, and I had my first real university teaching job. It was hard work. I was excited. But it was childcare that nearly brought me down. We went through one childcare after another, and it just didn't work. If I hadn't been saved by my Aunt Bee—I was ready to quit my job. And I think about how many women of my generation just got knocked off the track and never got back on, how many of my daughter's generation get knocked off the track and don't get back on, how many mamas and daddies today are getting knocked off the track and never get back on. (Debate 7, Des Moines)

In the same debate, former Vice President Joe Biden recalled his days as a single father and spoke about his daily commute to and from work by train, and how he struggled to balance his caregiving responsibilities.

You know, I was a single parent too. When my wife and daughter were killed, I had to raise my two boys. I was a senator, a young senator. I just hadn't been sworn in yet. And I was making $42,000 a year. I commuted every single solitary day to Wilmington, Delaware, over…250 miles a day, because I could not afford…childcare. It was beyond my reach to be able to do it. (Debate 7, Des Moines)

With their personal stories, candidates highlighted the nearly universal struggle that working parents face, showing that the issue of unaffordable and inaccessible childcare have persisted for decades and affect not only women, but also men.

A few candidates also deployed personal narratives to connect with voters whose lives are impacted by gender inequality. Their stories and experiences highlighted the pervasiveness of the gender pay gap, sexism, and harassment in the workplace.

In the first debate, which took place in Miami on June 26, 2019, Castro told viewers that he understood the challenges of single mothers who already struggle to make ends meet, even without the additional burden of unequal pay.

You know, I grew up with a mother who raised my brother Joaquin and me as a single parent, and I know what it’s like to struggle. I know what it’s like to rent a home and to worry about whether you’re going to be able to pay the rent on the first of the month and to see a mom work very, very hard and know that moms across this country are getting paid less simply because they’re women. (Debate 1, Miami)

During the next debate in Detroit on July 31, 2019, Andrew Yang recalled the sexism he personally witnessed as an entrepreneur in the business world. Yang also talked about his wife who left the workforce to care for their two sons, one of whom has autism, placing his personal life within the larger conversation about the need to measure the economic impact and overall value of caregiving.

I have seen firsthand the inequities in the business world where women are concerned, particularly in start-ups and entrepreneurship. We have to do more at every step. And if you're a woman entrepreneur, the obstacles start not just at home, but then when you seek a mentor or an investor, often they don't look like you and they might not think your idea is the right one. (Debate 2, Detroit)

And I like to talk about my wife who is at home with our two boys right now, one of whom is autistic. What is her work count in today's economy? Zero. And we know that's the opposite of the truth. We know that her work is amongst the most challenging and vital. The way we win this election is we redefine economic progress to include all the things that matter to the people in Michigan and all of us like our own health, our well-being, our mental health, our clean air and clean water, how our kids are doing. (Debate 2, Detroit)

And in the tenth debate, Warren, who challenged Bloomberg on allegations related to gender-based workplace harassment, shared her experience of pregnancy discrimination which culminated in the loss of her job. This wasn't the first time she talked about pregnancy discrimination; the senator previously discussed her experience during the third debate on September 12, which took place in Houston.

This is personal for me. When I was 21 years old, I got my first job as a special education teacher. I loved that job. And by the end of the first year, I was visibly pregnant. The principal wished me luck and gave my job to someone else. Pregnancy discrimination? You bet. But I was 21 years old, I didn’t have a union to protect me, and I didn’t have any federal law on my side. So I packed up my stuff, and I went home. (Debate 10, Charleston)

Again, the candidates used personal narrative to connect with the electorate–particularly with underrepresented individuals navigating professional barriers, middle and low-income families struggling to make ends meet, and women who confront sexism both inside and outside of the workplace.

In the absence of questions about childcare and gender-based workplace harassment, a few candidates seized upon existing controversies to press their challengers on their commitment to upholding the values underlying these issues. While the heated exchanges did not pertain to policy, they did force fellow candidates to articulate their beliefs or explain past behaviors.

In the second debate in Detroit, Gillibrand questioned whether Biden valued women and their presence in the workplace, pressing him about his position on the 1980s childcare tax credit and an op-ed he had written on the issue. While Gillibrand did not fully convey the context of Biden's past statements, she created a space to talk about women, caregiving expectations, and the needs of working mothers (and fathers) in the twenty-first century.

I think we have to have a broader conversation about whether we value women and whether we want to make sure women have every opportunity in the workplace. And I want to address Vice President Biden directly. When the Senate was debating middle-class affordability for childcare, he wrote an op-ed. He voted against it, the only vote, but what he wrote in an op-ed was that he believed that women working outside the home would, quote, "create the deterioration of family." … I just want to know what he meant when he said that. (Debate 2, Detroit)

In response to her challenge, the vice president emphasized his commitment to affordable childcare and expressed his passion for promoting gender equality, pointing to his record on equal pay, preventing sexual assault on college campuses, and passing legislation on domestic and intimate partner violence. Moreover, his response included a plan to mitigate the costs of childcare. By challenging Biden, Gillibrand began a discussion about gender-equality, the gender-care gap, the costs associated with caregiving, and possible solutions to support working parents.

Similar to Gillibrand, Warren discussed the issue of gender-based workplace harassment within the context of an intense exchange with Bloomberg. In the ninth debate held in Las Vegas, she confronted the former mayor about the workplace harassment allegations levied against him, testing his willingness to nullify the nondisclosure agreements which prevented the release of information.

I hope you’ve heard what his defense was, “I’ve been nice to some women.” That just doesn’t cut it. The mayor has to stand on his record. And what we need to know is exactly what’s lurking out there. He has gotten some number of women … dozens? Who knows … to sign nondisclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace. (Debate 9, Las Vegas)

Responding to Warren, Bloomberg noted that he had no tolerance for the behaviors exposed by the #MeToo Movement, supported equal pay for equal work and had worked to ensure women had leadership positions throughout his career in business and politics. Rather than avoid the conversation, Bloomberg engaged with Warren, thereby participating in a discourse about gender-based workplace harassment.

Candidates tied their plans around gender-work-family policy issues to the larger themes surrounding their individual campaigns and utilized the same language they used when discussing other issues. The common thread that ran through all framings was the emphasis on economic opportunity.

Every time Warren raised the issue of childcare, for instance, she included it in her plans for the two percent wealth tax which would be levied on those with a household net worth surpassing 50 million dollars. For her, this issue was about economic inequality, social mobility, supporting workers, and creating opportunity for working families.

The paths to America’s middle class have gotten a lot smaller and a lot narrower. Today, service members are preyed upon by predatory lenders. Students are crushed by debt. And families cannot afford child care. (Debate 3, Houston)

Similarly, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fit the issue of childcare into a larger discourse about universal rights, economic justice, and the perpetually widening wealth gap that favored corporations and the privileged over the working and middle class.

We need to fundamentally change priorities in America. We should not be one of a few countries that does not have universal high-quality affordable childcare. We should not be one of the only major countries not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. We should not be spending more than the 10 next countries on the military, hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, tax breaks for billionaires, and then tell the moms and dads in this country we cannot have high-quality affordable childcare. (Debate 7, Des Moines)

Yang discussed paid family leave, the gender pay gap, and gender-based workplace harassment within the context of his plan for a universal basic income. With this resource, families would have the economic freedom to afford their preferred caregiving options, and women in particular would have the security to leave harmful work environments without the fear of facing financial hardships.

So we need to have a freedom dividend in place from day one, $1,000 a month for every American adult, which would put in many cases $2,000 a month into families' pockets, so that they can either pay for childcare or if they want [to], stay home with the child. (Debate 5, Atlanta)

Typically, when Biden responded to questions about gender inequality, he often referenced his past contributions in Congress, namely authoring and leading the fight to pass the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which sought to improve legal and community-based responses to domestic violence, and his support for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the time allowed for filing complaints about wage discrimination on the basis of sex. The vice president also discussed his involvement with the "It's On Us" campaign, launched by the Obama administration as a response to the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. By referring to his record, Biden sought to portray himself as an experienced leader with a demonstrated record, a common refrain for his campaign throughout the primaries.

I wrote the Violence against Women Act [and supported] Lilly Ledbetter. I was deeply involved [with] the equal pay amendments. I was deeply involved in all these things. I came up with the…proposal to see to it that women were treated more decently on college campuses. (Debate 2, Detroit)

Our analysis confirms the importance and the need for greater discussion of these gender-work-family policy issues on the debate stage and beyond. Moving forward, how much can voters expect to hear about gender-work-family supportive policies from Democratic candidates?

Overall, the two remaining Democratic candidates discussed gender-work-family policy issues less than their rivals. Over the course of the ten debates, from June 26, 2019 to February 25, 2020, the former vice president and Sen. Sanders mentioned childcare just two and five times, respectively. On one occasion, Sanders highlighted the need for paid family and medical leave. And the former vice president mentioned the gender pay gap only once. Neither candidate addressed the problem of gender-based workplace harassment in the ten debates.

The onus is on the two remaining candidates to continue to talk about these issues. This will mean incorporating childcare, the gender pay gap, gender-based workplace harassment, and paid family and medical leave into their existing talking points and overall campaign messaging in ways that they did not do frequently or substantively during the debates.

Their performance in the eleventh debate on March 16, 2020, shows that these issues may continue to resurface. The vice president recognized the need for childcare solutions in light of COVID-19 and Sen. Sanders mentioned the need for universal childcare and equal pay in the context of women's financial security. The senator also pointed out the lack of paid family and medical leave in the United States. The extent to which both candidates will speak substantively on all work-family and gender-justice issues and address their impact on the American electorate–namely on women and underrepresented minorities–remains to be seen.

The Importance of Representation

This analysis underscores the importance of representation–who is on the stage matters a great deal—and who is not on the stage matters even more. As the debate cycle progressed, the presence of women and candidates of color diminished, as did their ability to focus on the issues affecting voters of underrepresented communities. When Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) spoke about the gender pay gap and paid family and medical leave, for instance, she framed these issues within the context of racial equity and economic justice–tying the need for fair compensation and paid time off to the poor health outcomes of Black women, who are at least three times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts. Although Harris was only a candidate through the fifth debate on November 20, 2019, she centered the experiences of Black women on a national stage, bringing attention to the ways in which systemic racial inequality impacted the survival of Black women and their families.

When women and people of color had a place on the stage, they raised the issues that disproportionately impact women and racial minorities, and ultimately impacts everyone. With Warren and Klobuchar in the debates, childcare remained an issue on the table. Moreover, though Warren didn’t frame her thoughts on gender-based harassment around policy oriented solutions, she did spotlight it on multiple occasions. Although gender-work-family justice issues went largely under-examined throughout this primary, these issues were mentioned more by female candidates than by male candidates. This analysis illustrates that the discourse around certain issues relies, in part, on who is on the stage.

During the 2019-2020 presidential primary season, voters watched the most diverse array of candidates enter the race. The identities of these presidential hopefuls informed their personal experiences, and likely influenced their policy priorities and interests. This debate cycle showed that when women and people of color had the mic, they used their power to speak out and stand up for the issues impacting workers and families, laying the groundwork for equitable policies and practices.