BEIJING, Feb. 11 -- For China's young singletons,the New Year holiday is not the best time to go home alone, and run the risk being confronted by nagging parents, bullying them into marriage.

A survey by China Youth Daily published on Tuesday set out the facts. Some 89.1 percent of the 7,932 respondents said they had seen or heard young people being pressed to get married during Spring Festival.

Two Chinese words have taken on a new prominence lately: shengnan and shengnv - leftover men and leftover women. They are applied to those who remain single in their late twenties or above.

As young people focus on their careers in a rapidly developing society, more are choosing to swerve marriage for a few years, especially in big cities.

These newfangled ideas conflict badly with those of their parents, most of whom got married much younger. Over the last 5,000 years, by hook or by crook, Chinese parents have tried desperately to snare a Mr.or Miss Right for their children as soon as possible.

According to the survey, most parents do more than giving earnest instructions on the urgency of getting hitched. They mobilize their friends and relatives, put pressure on their quivering offspring, or just go right ahead and arrange blind dates without their permission.

Those pesky young people however - mostly between 25 and 30 - are finding it difficult to hasten their descent into wedded bliss.

The survey found the main reason young people did not get married was lack of a suitable object for their affections. Other reasons include narrow social circles, strict standards, fear of marriage and being busy at work.

Last week, thousands of people boycotted a dating website because a TV advertisement which they claim put undue moral pressure on young people to force them to get married.

In the advertisement, a single girl is told by her parents that she must get married as quickly as possible, because her grandmother is critically ill. The blushing girl then appears - one assumes just in the nick of time - before her grandmother's sickbed, complete with wedding dress and her beaming beau.

"It's immoral and inhuman," said Internet user quanshijiejiunimang on Sina Weibo. "It's a horrific view of love and marriage, and a distortion of filial piety."

It is difficult enough that China's young people expect their lovers to be well educated with high incomes, but they must share common values, said Yao Lu, a marriage expert.

"It is a lot different from what their parents experienced decades ago," said Yao.