About 66.6% of respondents say they want become an official, in a survey of 5,440, China Youth Daily reported on Tuesday.

The majority (80.2%) were driven by the belief that being an official would bring power and privilege. A post after the survey said civil servants were thought to be the only group who want to be officials, but people from many other fields also share this desire.

Jiang Wei, a high school teacher, said: "Being a leader of course will have more privileges, I just know it. The new dean in our office always orders us to do some trivial things, such as moving boxes and then moving them back. If we complain, someone would get punished, such as being scolded publicly."

Nearly 77.6% of the respondents complained that people with high professional skills don't get the respect or economic reward they deserve.

Zhen Yuantai, dean of the research center at the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, also said, "More and more material, social and political resources have been utilized for the benefit of officials or leaders. For example, the bill for building more wards for senior officials will be much quicker to get passed than that for normal wards."

A netizen suggests resources should be prioritized to reward people with high professional skills. In the survey, around 80% suggest that regulations should be improved in that respect.

About half of the respondents were post-80s, or in their 20s, and those born in the 1970s accounted for 33.9%. The survey was co-conducted in February by two survey research centers - minyi.net.cn and sina.com.