Four glidepath strategies, compared.
How your equity allocation changes from accumulation to drawdown materially affects how long the money lasts. The traditional declining glidepath is not the only choice, and recent research suggests it may not be the best one.
1. Traditional declining glidepath
The standard advice: equity allocation = (110 − age) %. At 30 you hold 80 % equity, at 65 you hold 45 %, at 80 you hold 30 %. The portfolio de-risks steadily as you approach and pass retirement, on the logic that you have fewer years to recover from a drawdown.
Default for target-date funds and most institutional defined-contribution plans. Intuitive, easy to communicate, and approximately right. Drawback: peak risk to retirement survival is concentrated in the years just before and after retirement (sequence-of-returns risk), and a steadily declining glidepath does not directly target that risk.
2. Rising-equity glidepath
A more recent proposal (Pfau & Kitces, 2014): de-risk steadily until 5 years before retirement, hold a low-equity allocation through the first decade of retirement, then raise equity allocation back up over the remaining years.
The logic: sequence-of-returns risk is highest in the first decade of retirement (when balances are largest and a drawdown does most damage). Holding equity low in that window reduces tail risk. Once that window has passed, raising equity captures the higher long-run return for the remaining horizon. Backtest improvements over the traditional glidepath: 4–7 percentage points of survival probability at the 4 % withdrawal rate.
3. Bond-tent (Kitces)
A simplified version of the rising-equity strategy. Hold a normal equity allocation throughout accumulation, drop it to roughly 40 % equity in the 5 years either side of retirement (forming a “tent” on the allocation chart), then gradually return to a higher equity allocation in late retirement.
Benefits: simpler than the full rising-equity glidepath, captures most of the sequence-of-returns benefit, and easier to implement with a small number of rebalancing events. Drawback: requires more discipline than the “set and forget” target-date approach — you must actively raise equity at retirement age, which feels counter-intuitive.
4. Static 60/40
Never adjust. Hold 60 % equity / 40 % bonds for life.
Performs surprisingly well in long-horizon backtests. Avoids the tendency to be maximally conservative just as the longest-duration portion of the portfolio's life begins. The case against: it ignores sequence-of-returns risk entirely, leaving the retiree fully exposed in the years where a drawdown hurts most.
Survival rates by strategy
Approximate survival rates from published Monte Carlo backtests at 4 % inflation-adjusted withdrawal over 30 years, US-vintage data:
| Strategy | Survival rate | Implementation difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional declining | ~89% | Easy (default) |
| Rising-equity | ~95% | Hard (active management) |
| Bond-tent | ~93% | Moderate |
| Static 60/40 | ~91% | Easiest |
How the calculator handles this
The calculator uses a single accumulation rate and a drawdown rate set to 60 % of the accumulation rate — a rough proxy for a traditional declining glidepath. To model alternative strategies, run the calculator with the drawdown-phase return you expect from your chosen strategy. Bond-tent users typically enter a higher drawdown return than the default 60 % multiplier; static-60/40 users may enter the same return for both phases.