evidence: In 2017, 57.0 percent of all women participated in the labor force. This was slightly above the 56.8 percent who participated in 2016, but still 3 percentage points below the peak of 60.0 percent in 1999. By comparison, the labor force participation rate for men was 69.1 percent in 2017, essentially unchanged from the previous year and 17.5 percentage points below its peak of 86.6 percent in 1948. [...] Women’s labor force participation edged up to 57.0 percent in 2017 from 56.8 percent in 2016. Men’s labor force participation, which always has been much higher than that for women, was 69.1 percent in 2017, essentially unchanged from the previous year. (See table 2.) [...] Labor force participation varies by marital status and differs between women and men. Never married women had the highest participation rate of all women at 64.3 percent in 2017. Divorced women (61.5 percent) and separated women (61.7 percent) were more likely to participate in the labor force than married women (58.2 percent). By contrast, married men were more likely to participate in the labor force (72.9 percent) than never married men (67.4 percent), divorced men (65.2 percent), and separated men (70.7 percent). Among both women and men, those who were widowed were the least likely to participate in the labor force. (See table 4.)