While the nation celebrates the Qixi Festival, the Chinese Valentine's Day that falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, matchmaking agencies and relationship experts see less rosy prospects for marriage in the country.

A month-long survey conducted by Touchmedia, a major taxi in-vehicle advertising screen owner, found more than 70 percent of the passengers polled would be willing to help pay off a mortgage with their spouse after getting married.

After taking the plunge with a mass wedding at a Shenzhen theme park on Tuesday, the newlyweds celebrate on a roller coaster. According to a matchmaking website, there are about 180 million single people in China of marrying age.CHEN WEN / FOR CHINA DAILY

About 60 percent expect to get married, and ideally have a child, before the age of 29.

The survey kicked off one month before the festival to gauge people's attitudes toward love as the number of "leftover women", and men as well, keeps increasing.

The term "leftover women" was coined to refer to professional women who have not married by their late 20s.

Special: Dating ideas for Qixi

The poll received 1.59 million responses from taxi passengers in five major cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

It was one of the most answered surveys by the Shanghai-based advertising company, which had 50,000 screens across the country by the end of 2012.

When asked about "naked marriage", a recently coined term for getting married without owning a house, car or much other property, 45 percent of those polled said they are not against the idea, but less than 30 percent would "practice a naked marriage" themselves.

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