Reference
Glossary of European retirement-planning terms.
The vocabulary that turns up across French, German, Dutch, and Swiss retirement literature, in working English. Each entry links to the longer treatment where one exists on this site.
- Accumulation
- The phase before retirement, during which contributions and investment returns build the nest egg. Modelled by the standard FV-with-annuity formula.
- AGIRC-ARRCO
- The mandatory complementary pension scheme for French private-sector employees, supplementing the régime général. Operates on a points-accumulation basis.
- AHV / AVS
- The first pillar of the Swiss pension system: the federal old-age and survivors' insurance. Pay-as-you-go.
- AOW
- Algemene Ouderdomswet. The Dutch state pension. Flat residency-based benefit; second-pillar workplace pension provides the bulk of replacement income.
- APA
- Allocation Personnalisée d'Autonomie. French public assistance for long-term care, partially offsetting EHPAD costs.
- Bond-tent
- A glidepath strategy that drops equity allocation around the retirement transition, then raises it again later. Targets sequence-of-returns risk specifically. See the glidepath page.
- BVG / LPP
- The second pillar of the Swiss pension system: mandatory occupational pension contributions.
- Decumulation
- Synonym for drawdown. The phase after retirement during which the nest egg is drawn down to fund spending.
- EHPAD
- Établissement d'Hébergement pour Personnes Âgées Dépendantes. French residential care home. Average net cost: €26,000–€42,000 per year after public assistance.
- Entgeltpunkte
- Earnings points used to calculate German state pension benefits. One point per year for an employee earning the national average; multiplied by current point value (~€39.32 in May 2026).
- Glidepath
- The trajectory of asset allocation over an investor's lifetime, typically de-risking from equities to bonds as retirement approaches.
- Krankenkasse
- German statutory health insurance fund. Continues into retirement with contributions levied on pension income.
- Mutuelle
- French complementary health insurance covering co-payments not reimbursed by sécurité sociale. Mandatory in employment, optional but commonly held in retirement.
- Pillar
- A categorisation of pension provision: pillar 1 = state pension, pillar 2 = workplace pension, pillar 3 = personal voluntary savings (e.g., PER, SIPP, 3a).
- Pflegeversicherung
- German statutory long-term care insurance. Covers a portion of care-home costs; typically supplemented by private Pflegezusatzversicherung.
- PER
- Plan Épargne Retraite. The French personal retirement savings plan introduced by the 2019 PACTE law, replacing earlier products including PERP, Madelin, and PERCO.
- PEA
- Plan d'Épargne en Actions. A French tax-advantaged equity savings account; not specifically a retirement product but commonly used for long-term equity exposure.
- Real return
- Investment return after inflation. The figure that reflects actual change in purchasing power. Use real returns when projecting long-term retirement outcomes; nominal returns are misleading over multi-decade horizons.
- Régime général
- The basic French state retirement scheme administered by CNAV. Pay-as-you-go.
- Sequence-of-returns risk
- The risk that poor returns early in retirement do disproportionate damage to portfolio longevity. The reason rising-equity glidepaths and bond-tents exist.
- SWR / Safe Withdrawal Rate
- The maximum percentage of a portfolio that can be withdrawn annually with high historical confidence of surviving a target horizon. The 4% rule sets this at 4%; recent research suggests 3.3–3.7% may be more appropriate at 2026 valuations. See the 4% rule page.
- Trinity Study
- The 1998 Cooley/Hubbard/Walz paper that originated the modern understanding of safe withdrawal rates. Tested various rates against US 1926–1995 data on a 60/40 portfolio.