Declining fertility

For many decades the rising human population of our planet has been regarded as a major threat to civilisation, often featured in books and movies. It now becomes clearer that fertility is actually declining in more and more developed countries such as North America, Europe and Japan.

According to a BBC report (my emphasis):

In 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime. The fertility rate all but halved to 2.4 children per woman by last year.
But that masks huge variation between nations.
The fertility rate in Niger, west Africa, is 7.1, but in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus women are having one child, on average.
In the UK, the rate is 1.7, similar to most Western European countries.

If the rate is below 2.1 then the population will start to shrink. In some countries the population may be maintained only by increasing life expectancy and immigration each of which have other issues. This finding has huge implications for the future.