India’s Population Hits 1.46 Billion, Fertility Below Replacement: UN

India’s population is estimated to reach 1.46 billion in 2025, continuing to be the highest in the world, according to anew UN demographic report, which also revealed the country’s total fertility rate has fallen below the replacement rate.

- Press Trust Of India

UNFPA’s 2025 State of World Population (SOWP) Report, The Real Fertility Crisis, calls fora shift from panic over falling fertility to addressing unmet reproductive goals.

Millions of people are not able to realise their real fertility goals, it asserts.

This is the real crisis, not under-population or overpopulation, and the answer lies in greater reproductive agency ~a person’s ability to make free and informed 150 per cent choices about sex, contraception and starting a family, it says.

The report also reveals key shifts in population composition, fertility, and life expectancy, signalling a major demographic transition.

This means that, on average, Indian women are having fewer children than needed to maintain the population size from one generation tothenext, without migration.