Too Few Babies?

The author Fred Pearce in a book entitled 'Peoplequake:Mass Migration, Ageing Nations and the Coming Population Crash' has painted a picture in which human babies are in short supply (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/ageing-population-fred-pearce). He clearly feels that this is a wide phenomenon as he sees depopulation in former industrial areas (e.g. Hoyerswerda in what was East Germany) and even in the developing world (although this seems largely a statement of intent by women in Bangladesh). There certainly seem likely to be demographic 'problems' in many areas of Europe. A recent one is the claim from the National Housing Association that the numbers of retired people living in rural areas is set to increase by a million in the UK, making the delivery of services and survival of rural communities very difficult (http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-formers/press-releases/environment-and-rural-affairs/nhf-rural-communities-will-struggle-to-support-booming-older-population-$1356935$364344.htm). It is hardly remarkable that economic pressures are making it difficult to maintain 'balanced' populations of babies, school-aged children, working aged folk and retired people in many locations but I personally feel that a 'population crash' is a relatively minor concern. I may have got it wrong but I believe that more people are currently alive on this planet than can be counted in our species' entire history. Human (anthropogenic) pressures are intense over the natural world, meaning that a curtailing of further increase in world population numbers would be no bad thing.