The principal message for India from the UN Population Fund’s State of World Population Report 2025 is that it needs to adopt a new paradigm towards health and family welfare, with a focus on women’s empowerment.

For the country as a whole, a fall in the total fertility rate to 1.9 births per woman on average and a population estimate of 1.46 billion people in 2025 frame the macroscopic policy priorities, but drilling down into the data paints a worrying picture of women feeling a lack of reproductive agency.

Besides, social and economic instability seem to be affecting family size, and socially backward states continue to experience high birth rates. Evidently, the failure of governments to spend significantly on social determinants of a healthy........

© Free Press Journal