A nation-wide survey run by China Youth Daily found over half of the respondents plan to buy cars, Xinhua news service reports.

Of the survey's 1,541 respondents, 40 percent lived in small and medium-sized cities, while 43 percent were from larger cities.

Sixty percent of the survey's respondents said planned to buy a car in the next five years, while 16 percent already had one. Only 21 percent said they would not buy a car, Xinhua says.

According to the survey, most respondents said they wanted a car primarily because it was more convenient than mass transit. But one fourth of the respondents said they wanted to buy cars to improve their social status.

Sun Shijin, a psychology professor at Fudan University, told the China Youth Daily, "More and more people tend to use cars as show-off to satisfy their spiritual emptiness."