India records below-replacement fertility as family costs reshape choices

India began state-led family planning in the 1950s, long before many low- and middle-income countries adopted national fertility programmes. UN World Population Prospects data put India's total fertility rate above five births per woman in the 1950s and below two births per woman in the early 2020s. The 1975-77 Emergency remains a cautionary precedent because coercive sterilisation campaigns damaged trust in population policy. By contrast, NFHS-5 linked lower fertility to wider contraception use, education, urbanisation and state-level differences. The current turn is therefore from reducing births to managing ageing, regional imbalance and reproductive choice.

India's rise has often been linked to its scale: a huge market, a young workforce and strategic weight as China ages. Lower fertility does not erase that advantage, but it narrows the time window in which India can convert population size into productivity, military capacity, welfare resilience and bargaining power with the EU, United States and China.

The story is timely because recent Indian demographic data and UNFPA's 2025 report have shifted the fertility debate from population control to the reasons people delay, limit or forgo children despite often wanting families.