India, July 11 -- India has been able to bring down its total fertility rate in recent years. But the not so good news is that there still exists a big gap between total fertility rate (TFR) or the average number of children a woman has and total wanted fertility rate (TWFR) or what the rate could be if all unwanted pregnancies could be averted and women could have the number of children they wanted. One in three women (36 per cent) in India experienced unwanted pregnancies, according to the 2025 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and YouGov survey across 14 countries.

Bihar, among the top three high fertility states in the country, is a prime example where TFR has come down to 3, but TWFR is 2.2, indicating many of these births are ...