Biography
Daniel T. Lichter is the Ferris Family Professor emeritus in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy and the Department of Sociology at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1981 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined the Cornell faculty in August 2005. He taught previously at Pennsylvania State University (1981-1999) and The Ohio State University (1999-2005).
Dr. Lichter's recent research focuses on racial inequality, especially on the social and economic boundaries that separate minority and immigrant populations from mainstream native-born Whites.
Much of this work centers on persistence and change in the racial residential segregation, in large cities, suburban communities, and rural areas. Spatial integration is a key indicator of full incorporation into American society.
Lichter also studies changing patterns of interracial cohabitation and marriage. This work centers primarily on the topic of marital assimilation--on the question of whether new immigrant populations from Asian and Latin America increasingly marry native-born Whites in an increasingly diverse society. Marriage may provide a route to upward mobility and integration.
Dr. Lichter also has studied impoverished parts of rural America--in Appalachia, Indian Reservations, and the Mississippi Delta--and whether new immigrant populations can provide a demographic lifeline to depopulating rural areas. He's especially interesting in rural Hispanic "boom towns" working in meatpacking, corporate agriculture, dairy farming, and the hospitality industry.
Dr. Lichter is past-president of the Population Association of America (2012) and the Rural Sociological Society (2010-11). He also is past-president of the Association of Population Centers, and he has served as chair of both the family and population sections of the American Sociological Association. He also has served as editor of Demography (2002-2004), the flagship journal of the Population Association of America (PAA).
Lichter also is past director of the Institute for the Social Sciences (2016-2019), Cornell Population Center (2011-2015), and the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center (2005-2010).
PAM 2030: Population and Public Policy
PAM 6210: Poverty, Public Policy, and the Life Course
PAM 6050: Principles of Population
Anyawie, Maurice, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2023. "Children of Immigrants: Racial Assortative Mating and the Transition to Adulthood." Population Studies, forthcoming.
Lichter, Daniel T., Brian C.Thiede, and Matthew M. Brooks. 2023. "Racial Diversity and Segregation: Comparing Principal Cities, Inner-Ring Suburbs, Outlying Suburbs, and the Suburban Fringe." RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, forthcoming.
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2022. "Inter-County Migration and the Spatial Concentration of Poverty: Comparing Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Patterns." Rural Sociology 87(1):119-143.
Lichter, Daniel T., Zhenchao Qian, and Haoming Song. 2022. "Gender, Union Formation, and Assortative Mating among Older Women." Social Science Research 103(1).
Lichter, Daniel T., and Kenneth M. Johnson. 2021. "A Demographic Lifeline to Rural America: Latino Population Growth in New Destinations, 1990-2019." Pp. 67-80 in Investing in Rural Prosperity. St. Louis: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Lichter, Daniel T., and Kenneth M. Johnson. 2021. "Opportunity and Place: Latino Children and the American Future." Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 696(July):20-45.
Qian, Zhenchao, and Daniet T. Lichter. 2021. "Racial Pairings and Fertility: Do Interracial Couples have Fewer Children? Journal of Marriage and Family, 83, 961-984.
Lichter, Daniel T., David L. Brown, and Domenico Parisi 2021. "The Rural-Urban Interface: Rural and Small-Town Growth at the Metropolitan Fringe," Population, Space and Place, 27(3), 1-14.
Lichter, Daniel T., and Kenneth M. Johnson. 2020. "A Demographic Lifeline? Immigrantion and Hispanic Population Growth in Rural America." Population Research and Policy Review, 39, 785-803
Johnson, Kenneth M., and Daniel T. Lichter. 2020. "Metropolitan Reclassification and the Urbanization of Rural America." Demography, 57, 1929-2050.
Sassler, Sharon, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2020. "Cohabitation and Marriage: Complexity and Diversity in Union Formation Patterns." Journal of Marriage and Family, 82 (1), 35-61.
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, Shrinidhi Ambinakudige. 2020. "The Spatial Integration of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross-National Study." Population Research and Policy Review, 39, 465-491.
Lichter, Daniel T., Joseph P. Price, and Jeffrey M. Swigert. 2020. "Demographic Mismatches in the Marriage Market." Journal of Marriage and Family, 82 (April), 796-809.
Sutton, April, Daniel T. Lichter, and Sharon Sassler. 2019. "Urban-Rural Disparities in Unintended Pregnancies, Births, and Abortion among U.S. Teens and Young Women, 1995-2017." American Journal Public Health, 109 (12), 1762-1769.
Parisi, Domenico, Daniel T. Lichter, and Michael C. Taquino. 2019. "Remaking Metropolitan America? Residential Mobility and Racial Integration in the Suburbs." Socius 5:1-18.
Johnson, Kenneth M., and Daniel T. Lichter 2019. “Rural Depopulation: Growth and Decline Process over the Past Century.” Rural Sociology 84:3-27.
Lichter, Daniel T., and Zhenchao Qian. 2019. “The Study of Assortative Mating: Theory, Data, and Analysis.” Pp. 303-337 in Analytical Family Demography, edited by Robert Schoen. Springer.
Qian, Zhenchao, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2018. "Marriage Markets and Comparative Patterns of Intermarriage and Exchange in First Marriages and Remarriages. Demography 55 (3), 849-875.
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2018. “White Integration or Segregation? The Racial and Ethnic Transformation of Rural and Small Town America.” City & Community 17(3); 702-719.
Lichter, Daniel T., and Zhenchao Qian. 2018. “Boundary Blurring? Racial Identification among the Children of Interracial Couples.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 677(1): 81-94.
Lichter, Daniel T., and Zhenchao Qian. 2018. “Children at Risk: Diversity, Inequality, and the Third Demographic Transition.” Pp. 169-191 in Low Fertility Regimes and Demographic and Societal Change (eds., D.L Poston, S. Lee, and H. Kim). New York: Springer.
Thiede, Brian C., Daniel T. Lichter, and Tim Slack. 2018. “Working but Poor: The Good Life in Rural America?” Journal of Rural Studies 59 (April): 183-193.
Thiede, Brian C., Scott Sanders, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2018. "Demographic Drivers of In-Work Poverty: Family Formation and Change." Pp. 109-123 in Handbook of Research on In-Work Poverty (eds., H. Lohmann and I. Marx). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Qian, Zhenchao, Daniel. T. Lichter, and Dmitry Tumin. 2018. "Divergent Pathways to Assimilation? Local Marriage Markets and Intermarriage among U.S. Hispanics." Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (1), 271-288.
Thiede, Brian C., Scott R. Sanders, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2018. "Born Poor? Racial Diversity, Inequality, and the American Pipeline." Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 4(2): 206–228. .
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2017. "Together but Apart: Do US Whites Live in Racially Diverse Cities and Neighborhoods?" Population and Development Review 43:229-255.
Lichter, Daniel T., and James Ziliak. 2017. Guest Editors. The New Rural-Urban Interface. ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Issue 1, July 2017, pp. 6–301.
Lichter, Daniel T., and James Ziliak. 2017. "The Rural-Urban Interface: New Patterns of Spatial Interdependence and Inequality in America." ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672(July):6-25.
Lichter, Daniel T., Katherine Michelmore, Richard N. Turner, and Sharon Sassler. 2016. “Pathways to a Stable Union? Pregnancy and Childbearing among Cohabiting and Married Couples.” Population Research and Policy Review 35:377–399.
Johnson, Kenneth M., and Daniel T. Lichter. 2016. “Diverging Demography: Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Contributions to U.S. Population Redistribution and Diversity.” Population Research and Policy Review 35:705–725.
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2016. “Emerging Patterns of Hispanic Residential Segregation: Lessons from Rural and Small-Town America.” Rural Sociology 81:483–518.
Lichter, Daniel T., and Kai Schafft. 2016. “People and Places Left Behind: Rural Poverty in the New Century.” Chapter 14, Pp. 317-340 in Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Society (eds., D. Brady and L. Burton). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lichter, Daniel T. 2015. “Rural Sociology.” Pp. 814-819 in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition (ed., James D. Wright). Oxford: Elsevier.
Lichter, Daniel T., Zhenchao Qian, and Dimitry Tumin. 2015. “Whom Do Immigrants Marry? Emerging Patterns of Intermarriage and Integration in the United States.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 662:57-78.
Thiede, Brian C., Daniel T. Lichter, and Scott R. Sanders. 2015. "America's Working Poor: Conceptualization, Measurement, and New Estimates." Work and Occupations 42:267-312.
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2015. "Toward a New Macro-Segregation? Decomposing Segregation Within and Between Metropolitan Cities and Suburbs." American Sociological Review 80:843-873.
Lichter, Daniel T., Scott R. Sanders, and Kenneth M. Johnson. 2015. "Hispanics at the Starting Line: Poverty among Newborn Infants in Established Gateways and New Destinations." Social Forces 94:209-235.
Parisi, Domenico, Daniel T. Lichter, and Michael C. Taquino. 2015. "The Buffering Hypothesis: Growing Diversity and Declining Black-White Segregation in America's Cities, Suburbs, and Small Towns?" Sociological Science 2:125-157.
Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2015. "Spatial Assimilation in U.S. Cities and Communities? Emerging Patterns of Hispanic Segregation from Blacks and Whites." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 660(July): 36-56.
Crowley, Martha, Daniel T. Lichter, and Richard N. Turner. 2015. "Diverging Fortunes? Economic Well-Being of Latinos and African Americans in New Rural Latino Destinations. Social Science Research 51: 77-92.
Dr. Lichter is past-president of the Population Association of America (2012) and the Rural Sociological Society (2010-11). He also is past-president of the Association of Population Centers, and he has served as chair of both the family and population sections of the American Sociological Association. He also has served as editor of Demography (2002-2004), the flagship journal of the Population Association of America (PAA).
Lichter also is past director of the Institute for the Social Sciences (2016-2019), Cornell Population Center (2011-2015), and the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center (2005-2010).
Dr. Lichter is a member of USDA's regional project (W4001: Social, Economic and Environmental Causes and Consequences of Demographic Change in Rural America).
He also is currently serving as a member of the Census Bureau's National Advisory Committee. He also is a member of the Technical Working Group of the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families (The Pew Hispanic Center). Lichter also is a policy fellow of the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, and an affiliated member of the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. He currently is co-leader of the segregation working group at the Stanford Center of Poverty and Inequality.
He previously served as a member of the research advisory board of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unintended Pregancy. He also was a member of the National Academies of Science (NRC) on The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2016). The completed report is available at the NAS website at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/21746/the-integration-of-immigrants-into-american-society.
1981, PhD, Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1977, MA, Sociology, Iowa State University
1975, BA, Sociology, South Dakota State University