One in three adult Indians (36%) face unintended pregnancies, while 30% experience unfulfilled desire for having either more or fewer children. Notably, 23% faced both.
New Delhi : UNFPA’s 2025 State of World Population (SOWP) Report, The Real Fertility Crisis, calls for a shift from panic over falling fertility to addressing unmet reproductive goals. SOWP 2025 underlines millions of individuals are not able to realise their real fertility goals. This is the real crisis, not underpopulation or overpopulation. And, the answer lies in greater reproductive agency – a person’s ability to make free and informed choices about sex, contraception and starting a family.
The report, which includes a UNFPA-YouGov survey across 14 countries, including India, challenges global narratives around ‘population explosion’ vs. ‘population collapse’. Replacement-level fertility, commonly defined as 2.1 births per woman, is the rate at which a population size remains from one generation to the next. While India may have reached replacement-level fertility of 2.0, many people, especially women, still face significant barriers to making free and informed decisions about their reproductive lives and significant disparities persist across regions and states.
These barriers create what the report identifies as India’s “high fertility and low fertility duality.” States such as Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh continue to experience high fertility rates, while others, like Delhi, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, have sustained below-replacement fertility. This duality reflects differences in economic opportunities, access to healthcare, education levels, and prevailing gender and social norms.
Findings from the UNFPA–YouGov Survey: Online poll conducted across 14 countries, including India, covering 14,000 respondents.
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“India has made significant progress in lowering fertility rates—from nearly five children per woman in 1970 to about two today—thanks to improved education and access to reproductive healthcare,” said Andrea M. Wojnar, UNFPA India Representative. “This has led to major reductions in maternal mortality, meaning a million more mothers are alive today, raising children and building communities.Yet, deep inequalities persist across states, castes, and income groups. The real demographic dividend comes when everyone has the freedom and means to make informed reproductive choices. India has a unique opportunity to show how reproductive rights and economic prosperity can advance together.”
Beyond traditional barriers, emerging social realities are reshaping reproductive decisions. The report identifies a complex web of modern challenges: the growing loneliness pandemic, shifting relationship patterns, difficulties in finding supportive partners, social stigma around reproductive decisions, and deeply entrenched gender norms. Rising expectations around intensive parenting place disproportionate pressure on women, reinforcing unequal caregiving burdens and influencing decisions about if and when to have children.
In a landmark shift, this year’s State of World Population (SOWP) report moves beyond population figures to spotlight reproductive agency as a critical global priority. The report underscores that the real crisis lies not in population size, but in the widespread challenges to support individuals’ right to decide freely and responsibly if, when, and how many children to have.
Annexure: UNFPA’s Vision for a Rights-Based, Resilient India
UNFPA’s vision for India calls for “demographic resilience”—societies’ ability to adapt to population change without sacrificing human rights. The report outlines five key pillars for India’s rights-based approach:
- Expanding Sexual Reproductive Health services with universal access to contraception, safe abortion, maternal health, and infertility care
- Removing structural barriers by investing in childcare, education, housing, and workplace flexibility
- Promoting inclusive policies extending services to unmarried individuals, LGBTQIA+ persons, and other marginalized groups
- Improving data and accountability beyond fertility rates to measure unmet family planning needs and bodily autonomy
- Fostering social change through community initiatives challenging stigma and building health literacy
The State of World Population Report is UNFPA’s annual flagship publication, published since 1978. It brings emerging sexual and reproductive health and rights issues into mainstream development dialogue, informing policy and public action.
The full State of World Population Report 2025 is available at – https://india.unfpa.org/en/publications/state-world-population-2025-rea…
For more information, please contact:
Pinky Pradhan | Communications & Media Specialist | ppradhan@unfpa.org I +91 9810788435
Avani Singh I Communications & Media Analyst I avsingh@unfpa.org I +91 9953591851
About UNFPA:
UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. UNFPA’s mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA calls for the realization of reproductive rights for all and supports access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including voluntary family planning, quality maternal health care and comprehensive sexuality education.