Much of Lichter's research focuses on welfare incentive incentives on the family, and on patterns of marriage and cohabitation in American society over the past 30 years. His recent papers have examined the implications of state marriage promotion policies, i.e., questions about whether low-income women face significant barriers to healthy marriages, whether they form marriages that last, and whether they marry men who can provide a route from poverty. He also has published several papers on interracial marraige. Intermarriage is often used a measure of social distance between groups. His work shows that, for the first time in recent memory, intermarriage rates between whites and Hispanics and Asians declined, even among native-born minorities, a fact with suggests growing racial and ethnic balkanization in America.

His other demographic work has focused on poverty, especially among children and in rural areas. His recent papers on poverty trends center of the implications of changing patterns of family structure (especially the rise in female-headed families) and maternal employment on poverty rates among economically vulnerable and historically disadvantaged groups. For example, Lichter has studied trends in income inequality among children, while documenting the emergence of two distinctive economic tracks of America's children as they make their way into adulthood. He also has documented the changing spatial concentration of poverty in rural areas (i.e., rural ghettos), while providing national estimates of the percentage of poor minority children who live in high-poverty areas (e.g., Indian reservations, Black Belt counties of the South).

Finally, Lichter is studying the new destinations of immigrants to America, especially the movement of Mexican immigrants to rural areas. He has provided the first national estimates of racial residential segregation in Hispanic boom towns in the Midwest and South, focusing on the spatial assimilation and economic incorporation of the new immigrants into local communities.

Lichter, D.T., D. Parisi, M. Taquino, and B. Beaulieu. 2008. Race and the Micro-Scale Concentration of Poverty. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, forthcoming.

Graefe, D.R., and Lichter, D.T. (2007). Marriage Patterns among Unwed Mothers: Before and After PRWORA. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming.

Graefe, D.R., and Lichter, D.T. (2007). When Unwed Mothers Marry: The Marital and Cohabiting Partners of Mid-Life Women. Journal of Family Issues 28:595-622.

Lichter, D.T., Brown, J.B., Qian, Z-C., and Carmalt J. (2007). Marital Assimilation Among Hispanics: Evidence of Declining Cultural and Economic Assimilation? Social Science Quarterly 88(3): 745-765.

Lichter, D.T., and Graefe, D.R. (2007). Men and Marriage Promotion: Who Marries Unwed Mothers? Social Service Review 81(3): 397-421.

Lichter, D.T., and Johnson, K.M. (2007). The Changing Spatial Concentration of America's Rural Poor Population. Rural Sociology 72(3): 331-358.

Lichter, D.T., Parisi, D., Grice, S.M., and Taquino, M. (2007). Municipal Underbounding: Racial Exclusion in Small Southern Towns. Rural Sociology, 72:47-68.

Qian, Z-C, and Lichter, D.T. (2007). Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Evaluating Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage. American Sociological Review 72:68-94.

Batson, C.D., Qian, Z-C., and Lichter, D.T. (2006) Interracial and Intraracial Patterns of Mate Selection Among America's Diverse Black Populations. Journal of Marriage and Family 68: 658-672.

Crowley, M.L., Lichter, D.T., and Qian, Z-C. (2006). Beyond Gateway Cities: Economic Restructuring and Poverty among Mexican Immigrant Families and Children. Family Relations 55: 345-360.

Lichter, D.T., and Johnson, K. (2006). "Emerging Rural Settlement Patterns and the Geographic Redistribution of America's New Immigrants." Rural Sociology, 71(1):109-131.

Lichter, D.T., Qian, Z-C, and Mellott, L. (2006) Marriage or Dissolution?Transitions to Marriage among Poor Cohabiting Women. Demography 43(2): 223-240.