Indian Children 2025 Health Education and Child Protection Trends

India 2025 - Key Indicators and Emerging Trends in children.

On September 25, 2025, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) published the fourth volume of its flagship publication Children in India 2025. In this publication, an in-depth overview of the well-being of children has been given including health, education, child protection, and social development. The report uses various governmental sources to draw data, making it a resource of the importance of the policy makers and researchers engaged in the process of producing evidence-based planning in relation to the future generations of India.

Health and Mortality Trends
India has significantly achieved success in child mortality. Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) decreased as it was 44 per 1,000 live births in 2011, and became 25 in 2023. In the same manner, the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was slightly decreased between 2022 (30) and 2023 (29). Nevertheless, the rural regions still show higher mortality rate than the urban ones. Another point that is raised in the report is that male infants are slightly more likely to have IMR than female infants. The birth rates are on the decline, rural stands at 20.3 and urban at 14.9 per 1000 population in 2023.

Education and Retention
There are positive changes within the education sector. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) demonstrates that there is parity in all levels and the secondary education even has a GPI of 1.1 and this implies that more females are enrolled than males. There has also been an impressive dropout rates. In 2022-23, preparation stage dropouts dropped to 8.7% and in 2024-25, to 8.2%. Middle level dropped to 8.1% in 2022-23 and 3.5 in 2024-25. These achievements can be attributed to an increased retention and equality in access to education.

Child Marriage and Social Development.
Child marriage is still a very problematic issue, but its occurrence is on the decrease. The proportion of women of age 20-24 who were married off before 18 decreased to 23.3% in 2019-21, which is a slow yet positive sign of progress in terms of awareness and enforcement.

Adoption and Protection Measures.
The number of adoptions has grown in the post-year 2017-18 by 3,927 to 4,515 in post-year 2024-25, the most prevalent of which is in-country adoptions, and the girls are more frequently adopted compared to boys. New information on crimes against children and protection mechanisms are also provided in the report, where the policy focus is also necessary.

The seven-chapter report, which addresses issues such as population to sustainable development goals, offers a refreshed perspective on children in India with comprehensive data in terms of tables and QR-codes. It highlights the success as well as the struggles of India to have a better and safer tomorrow of its children.