As far as impact, soldiers (and handymen, etc) aren't counted as "not participating", they're pulled out of the denominator also. But yes, the different pools m

As far as impact, soldiers (and handymen, etc) aren't counted as "not participating", they're pulled out of the denominator also. But yes, the different pools mean that if men and women have equal LFPR percentages, the in-dataset workforce would be 51.7% female. Even weirder, the "prime-age" and overall labor force participation rates can't simultaneously be equal between genders. All of which contributes to news stories like this one misusing random benchmarks. Why measure it that way? The BLS started collecting civilian labor force data in 1948. Participation rates had a gender gap of more than 50 points, so the implications of equal participation weren't very relevant. But 10 million soldiers had been raised during the war, many by conscription, and that same 10 million were decommissioned between 1945 and 1947 - all against an adult population of 100 million. So it was clear that during wartime any military-included statistic would have no real bearing on what potential workers at home were choosing to do. It's not totally clear to me why government workers were counted at all. They don't get drafted and their numbers don't vary wildly in wartime, so it's less of a data issue, but it would include explicit make-work projects like the CCC. I suppose that if the point is to measure which available workers are choosing to work, CCC employment is more "valid" than conscription? Why keep the stat that way with a comparatively small, all-volunteer military? Continuity, pretty much. Changing definitions or abandoning stats ruins change-over-time data, so the BLS almost always adds new stats instead of changing old ones.