Abstract: The high rate of “missing women” in todays China has a long history that goes back to imperial times，and one embodiment of such preference is the presence of female infanticide in the Ming （13681644） and the Qing （16441911） dynasties With a relatively abundant qualitative accounts on the presence of female infanticide，quantitative evidence is scant As female infanticide matters to Chinese demography because it shaped not only the mortality，but also the fertility pattern，it is also a key issue in the Great Divergence debate，initiated by the release of Pomeranzs seminal work，“The Great Divergence” While the California School scholars argue it was widely practiced in Qing China，the only quantitative evidence is provided by Lee，Campbell，and Wang on North China，but not the core region in the debate，the Yangzi Delta 
Therefore，this paper attempts at reinvestigating the survival of daughters from 1350 to 1900 using newly digitised genealogical records from six lineages in the Yangzi Delta Using two separate samples comprising 19 516 fathers and 6 000 daughters，this paper first estimates the proportion of “missing daughters”，daughters who should have been born but were not recorded in the genealogies We then distinguish between the two causes of “missing”，underregistration and excess female deaths because of female infanticide and parental neglect during infancy and childhood，and estimate the underregistration rate and the female infanticide rate 
The estimated child sex ratio was about 1341，with the ratios in the elite lineages，the Gu （1191），the Zhuang （1151），and the Liu （116:1），the most balanced By assuming that the number of daughters who survived were completely recorded for fathers who had daughters records，we estimate that the percentage of missing daughters was around 689 per cent，with 214 per cent of them dying of infanticide and neglect in infancy and childhood，and 475 per cent of them survived but not recorded We compare the results from the six lineages with the previous estimates provided in Lee et al（1994）and Lee & Campbell（1997），finding that the daughters survival pattern in the three elite lineages in the Yangzi Delta was comparable with that of the Qing royal family，and the pattern of the three common lineages was comparable with that of the Liaoning rural village 
We then test the factors that were related with daughters survival in the Ming and Qing dynasties The empirical investigation suggests that fathers social status and cultural background were significantly correlated with their daughters records in the genealogies，their sex composition in the households，and their daughters marriages Being higher social status was positively correlated with the number of daughters a father would have，and the proportion of daughters within his household Daughters of degree and officeholders were also more easily to marry degree and officeholders A strong positive assortative mating pattern was observed in the six lineages in the Yangzi Delta

Key words: missing women, gender discrimination, traditional culture, Ming-Qing China, genealogies

摘要： “消失女性”现象在中国由来已久，但关于历史时期“消失女性”的量化证据仍然比较缺乏。本文利用全新的族谱数据，重新估计了1350—1900年江浙地区六个家族中的性别歧视状况并分析了影响“消失女性”规模的因素。利用包括19 516位父亲和6 000位女儿的两个独立样本，本文发现约有214%的女儿“消失”是因为溺女或父母忽视等人为因素造成的女性后代相比于男性后代的超额死亡，而还有475%的女儿“消失”是因为族谱记录对于女性的歧视而造成的漏记。本文同时发现，父亲的经济社会地位和受传统文化的影响程度，都与女儿是否能够被族谱记录、女儿在家庭子女总数中的比例以及女儿的婚配状况显著相关。

关键词: 消失女性, 性别歧视, 传统文化, 明清时期, 族谱