Since the start of automatic enrolment in 2012, millions of people have been enrolled into Defined Contribution pensions which will give them a pot of money at retirement.
A lot of attention has been focused on the process of building up that pot - the “accumulation phase” - with strict rules on charging levels and on the structure of the ‘default fund’ into which most members will be saving. But much less attention has been given to what happens at, and after, retirement - the “decumulation phase”.
This paper builds on our previous research and evaluates the relative merits of using a retirement pot in decumulation to go into drawdown compared with buying an annuity.
