Career Goal Completion and Early Retirement Intentions in the Maintenance to Disengagement Transition: A Moderated‐Mediation Analysis of Health Status and Financial Security for Late‐Career Counseling

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines why employees in Super's maintenance and disengagement stages, operationalized as workers aged 45–65, reporting high job satisfaction nonetheless form early retirement intentions (ERIs). Survey data from 380 Indian employees aged 45–65 were analyzed using structural equation modeling with bootstrapping. Job satisfaction was positively associated with ERI, health status partially mediated this relationship, and financial security moderated both paths. Interpreted through Super's life‐span theory, Savickas's career construction theory, and Schlossberg's transition theory, these findings reframe the satisfaction‐exit pattern as career goal completion rather than disengagement failure. Implications for late‐career counseling assessment and intervention design are developed.