(JNS.org) Israelis are overwhelmingly proud of their country and view it as a good place to live their lives in, a new poll conducted by New Wave Research and commissioned by Israel Hayom ahead of Israel Independence Day shows.

According to the survey, which used a representative sample of 500 Israeli Jews who are 18 or older, 74.6 percent of Israel’s Jewish population is “very proud” to be Israeli; this figure represents a 5 percentage point increase compared with a similar poll last year, a difference that is statistically significant (the sampling error is +/- 4.5 percent).

The poll shows that the proportion of those who are not proud of being Israeli has also gone up, from 5.1 percent to 6.2 percent. Overall, almost 92 percent of respondents said they were very proud or somewhat proud to be Israeli. Women respondents expressed more pride in their national identity than men did (77.2 percent versus 71.9 percent), and the younger generation is the proudest, with 90.5 percent of those between 18 to 24 saying they are “very proud” to be Israeli.

Responses among high-income earners and those with average salaries were virtually identical when it comes to their level of pride (about 80 percent in both groups considered themselves proud to be Israelis); even when broken down according to geography, the responses did not deviate by any significant amount.

As was the case last year, more than 74 percent think Israel is a good place to live in, although there has been a slight uptick in the percentage of people who disagree.