India’s overall birthrate has fallen in tandem with its rising economy, but poverty and a deep-rooted bias for male heirs have kept Bihar an engine room of national population growth. Gita Devi poses with her five children at her village house in Darbhanga District, Bihar, India. Village women Kavita Devi, left, and Savita Devi pose with their children at their house in Darbhanga District, Bihar, India. Pregnant women and mothers stand in a queue as they wait for their turn to see an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife health worker at a state-run rural health centre in a village in the Darbhanga district of India’s Bihar state. “Our people say that a woman is useless if she can’t produce kids after marriage,” she said.
