Career calling refers to an individual's transcendent perception of their professional and life pursuits, with altruistic values serving as the primary motivational source, aiming to integrate personal career choices with life meaning and goals to fulfill one's role (Duffy et al., 2018). Generally, individuals with career calling view work as an integral part of their lives. Their dedication stems not from external rewards but from the pursuit of life purpose and meaning. Such individuals demonstrate clear goals, strong passion, and heightened responsibility toward their mission-driven domains (Duffy et al., 2011), which enhances positive cognitive and emotional evaluations of work (Dik and Duffy, 2009). For specific populations, research shows that college students' career calling positively predicts work meaning, academic satisfaction (Duffy et al., 2014), life satisfaction (Duffy and Sedlacek, 2010), among working adults, calling has also been shown to predict higher career satisfaction (Xie et al., 2016). Further research indicates that individuals with a calling derive greater psychological capital (hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism) from their work experiences (Choi et al., 2018). More direct evidence reveals that occupational calling positively predicts occupational resilience among nurses (Xie et al., 2024). A study of medical students found that even those with lower self-efficacy can still demonstrate high professional commitment if they possess strong occupational calling (Goodin et al., 2014). Additionally, sense of purpose—a core component of career calling - serves as a critical factor in fostering doctoral students' resilience, enabling them to persevere through academic challenges and achieve breakthroughs (Chamadia and Qureshi, 2021).

Therefore, this study proposes Hypothesis 1 (H1): career calling positively associated with academic resilience.

As a core component of career construction theory (Savickas, 2005), career adaptability represents an individual's essential capacity to respond to external challenges during career development. It reflects one's preparedness to adjust to various career tasks and role transitions, facilitating successful career transitions and professional achievements (Haenggli and Hirschi, 2020; Ramos and Lopez, 2018). Specifically, it denotes the dynamic ability to address current and future career demands, including the flexibility to modify career goals, skills, and attitudes in response to changing professional environments (Savickas and Porfeli, 2012). Career adaptability is considered a career adaptation resource influenced by both individual traits and external environmental factors. Career adaptation behaviors and outcomes emerge from the interaction between career adaptability and career adaptation preparedness, shaped through dimensions of concern, control, curiosity, and confidence (Savickas, 2005; Savickas and Porfeli, 2012). Regarding the relationship between career calling and career adaptability, studies on older adults, and college students have consistently demonstrated positive correlations (Chen and Zhang, 2023). As a crucial psychosocial resource for career development, career adaptability constitutes an individual's “response readiness” to both predictable and unpredictable career situations (Savickas, 1997), inherently reflecting proactive coping capabilities. Research on employees of higher-education institutes demonstrates a direct positive correlation between career adaptability and career resilience (Ahmad et al., 2023). Similarly, studies focusing on nursing interns have also identified a direct association between these two factors (Xu Y., et al., 2024).

Thus, Hypothesis 2 (H2): career adaptability positively mediates the relationship between career calling and academic resilience.

Decent work refers to productive employment opportunities obtained under conditions of freedom, equity, safety, and human dignity, with its core being the promotion of workplace rights, employment equality, social protection, and social dialogue (International Labour Organization, 1999). Recent studies rooted in the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) have highlighted decent work as a multifaceted construct, integrating dimensions such as physical safety, fair remuneration, access to healthcare, reasonable working hours, and organizational values aligned with family and society (Duffy et al., 2016, 2017). Perceived future decent work builds upon the concept of decent work (Wei et al., 2022), referring to workers' perceptions of future work environments. According to PWT, antecedents of perceived future decent work may include marginalization, economic constraints (Duffy et al., 2016). Research has found that work volition among college students from impoverished families directly predicts perceptions of future decent work (Wei et al., 2022).

Regarding outcome variables, decent work can directly or indirectly influence wellbeing by fulfilling basic human needs. Moreover, perceptions of future decent work demonstrate similar effects, particularly in mediating pathways between motivational factors like career calling and adaptive outcomes such as academic resilience. Studies focusing on pre-service college students (those yet to enter the workforce) have shown that future decent work perceptions are positively correlated with academic satisfaction (Wen et al., 2023) and negatively correlated with employment anxiety (Wan et al., 2024), suggesting their role in buffering stressors and enhancing persistence in academic pursuits. Further research indicates that these perceptions also serve as a significant positive predictor of resilience (Wen et al., 2024), implying that optimistic views of future work can foster the psychological resources needed to overcome academic challenges, thereby supporting their potential mediating function in linking career calling—a sense of purpose in one's vocational path—to greater resilience. Complementary evidence from Nigerian youth research shows that work volition (a construct related to career calling) predicts future decent work opportunities, and those with better decent work prospects exhibit higher academic satisfaction and career engagement (Ezema and Autin, 2024)—implying that career-related aspirations may translate to academic persistence via enhanced future labor expectations. Moreover, the future dimension of decent work shares isomorphism with hope, as both center on positive future expectations. Given that hope correlates with reduced distress and enhanced adaptive functioning (Feldman and Snyder, 2005; Arnau et al., 2007), this parallel suggests perceived future decent work could mediate the positive effect of career calling on academic resilience by fostering adaptive psychological resources.

Accordingly, Hypothesis 3 (H3): perceived future decent work positively mediates the relationship between career calling and academic resilience.

Career adaptability, as a central construct in Career Construction Theory (Savickas, 2005), represents individuals' psychosocial resources for managing career transitions and constructing meaningful vocational paths through ongoing interactions between their internal self-concepts and external environments. According to CCT, career adaptability facilitates the integration of personal values, skills, and environmental opportunities, enabling individuals to form coherent narratives about their future careers, including optimistic perceptions of securing decent work. This theoretical perspective posits that adaptable individuals are better equipped to anticipate and prepare for future work conditions, thereby enhancing their expectations of achieving decent work characterized by fair pay, safe conditions, and meaningful engagement.

Complementing this view, Duffy et al. (2016) Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) emphasizes how career adaptability serves as a key mechanism in transforming structural barriers and personal resources into pathways toward decent work attainment. PWT highlights that adaptability activates psychological resources, such as self-regulation and proactive behaviors, to foster perceptions of future decent work, particularly in uncertain or resource-constrained contexts. By building on survival needs and promoting volitional control over career choices, adaptability strengthens individuals' beliefs in their ability to secure sustainable and fulfilling employment, thus linking adaptive capacities to positive future-oriented cognitions.

Empirical research offers growing support for this theorized link. For instance, a study focusing on college students from low-income families found that career adaptability directly and positively predicted their perceptions of future decent work (Wei et al., 2022). This finding suggests that adaptability resources empower individuals to envision and believe in the possibility of obtaining fulfilling and dignified work despite potential socioeconomic barriers. Similarly, in a sample of rural-oriented pre-service teachers in China, career adaptability positively predicted perceptions of future decent work, highlighting the role of adaptability in shaping positive work-related expectations and outcomes within educational career paths amid challenges like resource disparities and role transitions (Wen et al., 2024).

Hence, Hypothesis 4 (H4): career adaptability and perceived future decent work sequentially and positively mediate the relationship between career calling and academic resilience.

Decent work provides foundational resources and protections that enhance individuals' capacity to buffer psychological strain under pressure (Duffy et al., 2016), thereby functioning as a contextual amplifier that moderates the associations between other positive variables and academic resilience. The construct referenced here—present perceptions/experiences of decent work—is distinct from perceived future decent work discussed earlier. Whereas the latter concerns anticipated access and expectations regarding decent employment after graduation (i.e., the prospect of securing safe, fair, dignified, and sustainable work), and thus reflects a forward-looking judgment, the former focuses on the decency of one's current study/work context—including safety and health protections, fair compensation, reasonable hours and rest, social support and respect, and growth opportunities—and represents a subjective appraisal of the immediate environment. Building on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems theory—which posits that the quality of the microsystem moderates links between individual attributes and adaptive outcomes—decent work emerges as a crucial environmental factor that helps individuals navigate career challenges while enabling the realization of personal and social value. For example, safe workplaces, as a core element of decent work, have demonstrated significant moderating effects on work-related wellbeing (Tebbe et al., 2019).

The core mechanism of this moderating role is that when individuals perceive their current study or work setting to embody features of decent work, such perceptions provide superior conditions and a stronger platform for other psychological resources and positive expectations to operate (Duffy et al., 2016), thereby magnifying and stabilizing their beneficial effects on academic resilience. Among doctoral students, decent work can serve as a resource enabler: higher levels of perceived decency signal greater economic security and social protection, which buffer anxiety and interference arising from unmet basic needs (Duffy et al., 2016). This shift allows students to redirect psychological energy from “survival worries” to “scholarly pursuits,” smoothing the translation of calling-driven motivation into resilient academic behavior. Decent work also reinforces value recognition and efficacy. In line with Career Construction Theory (Savickas, 2005), doctoral students' adaptive functioning represents psychosocial resources for meeting challenges; when present conditions convey respect and recognition of personal value (Duffy et al., 2016), these conditions bolster self-efficacy, strengthening students' conviction that their efforts will be met with appropriate rewards and respect. As a result, they deploy their resources more fully and confidently to overcome academic difficulties, thereby fortifying the pathway from career calling to academic resilience. In addition, current decent work operates as a “reality anchor” and validator of hope. Prior work suggests that perceived future decent work positively predicts resilience (Wen et al., 2024), and present decent work provides empirical grounding for such positive expectations (Wen et al., 2023). This consistency between present reality and future expectations consolidates hope (Feldman and Snyder, 2005), rendering the calling-inspired future more credible and compelling, and in turn strengthening the chain through which perceived future decent work promotes academic resilience.

Accordingly, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 5 (H5): Decent work positively moderates the relationship between career calling and academic resilience.

Hypothesis 6 (H6): Decent work positively moderates the relationship between career adaptability and academic resilience.

Hypothesis 7 (H7): Decent work positively moderates the relationship between perceived future decent work and academic resilience.

Based on previous literature, this study proposes the theoretical model (Figure 1).

This study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and recruited 898 doctoral candidates from multiple universities in China through convenience sampling between October 9, 2024, and January 5, 2025. To distribute the instruments and obtain responses, the following procedures were implemented, combining online and offline methods:

For online distribution, the Wenjuanxing short link/QR code was first shared within the doctoral community of the researcher's university, specifically in doctoral cohort WeChat groups (by year), lab/research-team chats, and methods/seminar groups. It was then broadened through WeChat/QQ friend lists and Moments and doctoral academic-exchange groups relevant to disciplines or research methods. Where required, permission from group administrators was sought, and group-based sharing was limited to academic or research-related groups. To widen reach, announcements were also posted on public social-media platforms (e.g., Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, Weibo). Two gentle reminders were issued around Day 7 and Day 14, and no direct or repeated one-to-one messages were sent to avoid pressure.

For offline distribution, paper questionnaires were handed out during university seminars, doctoral program meetings, and academic events (lectures, workshops, forums), with the same cover sheet and instructions. The online landing page presented an informed-consent statement (purpose, voluntariness, anonymity, confidentiality), and participation required checking a mandatory consent box before items appeared; paper respondents signed the same statement.

Electronic responses were captured automatically via Wenjuanxing, whereas paper forms were double-entered and reconciled. To safeguard data integrity, Wenjuanxing settings limited duplicate submissions (device/IP checks; no back-navigation resubmission), and no personal identifiers were collected during online distribution. Ex-ante/ex-post quality screens excluded cases with >20% missing data, inconsistent/patterned responding, or completion times < 5 min; no incentives were offered. After screening, 865 valid cases remained (96.3%).

Participants were stratified by academic year: 26% first-year, 25% second-year, 28% third-year, and 21% fourth-year or above. The age distribution was as follows: ≤ 25 years (n = 87, 10.1%), 26–27 years (n = 346, 40.0%), 28–29 years (n = 277, 32.0%), and ≥30 years (n = 155, 17.9%). In terms of gender, the sample comprised 447 males (51.7%) and 418 females (48.3%). Participants' universities were distributed across China's major regions: eastern (n = 536, 62.0%), central (n = 199, 23.0%), and western (n = 130, 15.0%). All participants were enrolled in academic/research-oriented doctoral programs (n = 865, 100%). No minors participated in the study.

All scales used validated Chinese versions or were back-translated following standard translation procedures by two bilingual experts, with discrepancies resolved by consensus. A pilot with 60 doctoral students confirmed clarity and cultural fit (all α > 0.70). Confirmatory factor analyses in AMOS 26.0 verified construct validity. Model fit was judged using commonly referenced benchmarks (Hu and Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2018): χ²/df < 5 as acceptable (with < 3 indicating good fit and < 2 excellent), RMSEA < 0.08 as acceptable (with < 0.05 good), and incremental fit indices (NFI, IFI, TLI, CFI) > 0.90 as acceptable (with > 0.95 good). For multidimensional scales, hierarchical omega values above 0.50 were considered supportive of higher-order factor structures (Revelle and Zinbarg, 2009), justifying the use of total scores. Full results are reported in Table 1.

This study employed SPSS 26.0 statistical software, along with Hayes‘ PROCESS macro for SPSS and Amos 26.0, to perform the following analyses: reliability and validity tests, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, as well as serial mediation and moderation effect analyses. Specifically, reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficients, while validity was evaluated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in AMOS 26.0, with model fit was judged by indices such as RMSEA (< 0.08) and incremental fit indices (NFI, IFI, TLI, CFI > 0.90). Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analyses were conducted in SPSS 26.0 to examine means, standard deviations, and inter-variable relationships. For serial mediation, a structural equation model (SEM) was constructed in AMOS 26.0 to test path relationships, with model fit evaluated using the aforementioned indices. Mediation effects were further examined using the Bootstrap method in AMOS 26.0; all Bootstrap analyses in this study involved resampling 5,000 times at a 95% confidence level with bias-corrected confidence intervals, where indirect effects were deemed significant if the confidence interval excluded zero, and partial mediation was indicated if the direct effect's interval also excluded zero. For moderation and moderated mediation, Hayes' PROCESS macro (Model 89) was applied in SPSS 26.0, incorporating interaction terms to assess conditional effects at mean ± 1 SD levels of the moderator (decent work), with significance determined via the aforementioned Bootstrap confidence intervals.

Since the data were collected through self-reported surveys, this study conducted common method bias testing. We conducted Harman's single-factor test by performing an exploratory factor analysis without rotation on all measurement items. The results showed that the first unrotated factor accounted for 19% of the total variance, which is below the commonly accepted threshold of 40%. This indicates that there is no serious common method bias in the study data.

Table 2 reports the means, standard deviations, and correlation analysis results of the variables: (1) Career calling demonstrated significant positive correlations with academic resilience (r = 0.389, p < 0.01), career adaptability (r = 0.308, p < 0.01), and perceived future decent work (r = 0.346, p < 0.01). (2) Career adaptability demonstrated significant positive correlations with academic resilience (r = 0.421, p < 0.01) and perceived future decent work (r = 0.393, p < 0.01). (3)Perceived future decent work was significantly positively correlated with academic resilience (r = 0.428, p < 0.01). These correlation results provide preliminary verification of the aforementioned hypotheses and establish the foundation for subsequent hypothesis testing.

Using AMOS 26.0, we constructed and tested a full structural equation model with career calling as the independent variable, academic resilience as the dependent variable, and career adaptability and perceived future decent work as mediators. The serial mediation model demonstrated good fit: χ²/df = 2.744 (below 3); CFI = 0.970 (above 0.90); TLI = 0.961 (above 0.90); IFI = 0.970 (above 0.90); RMSEA = 0.045 (below 0.08). All indices met the recommended thresholds, indicating satisfactory model fit for examining the path relationships among variables. Given the satisfactory model fit, we proceeded to examine the direct and indirect effects among the variables, as illustrated in Figure 2 (detailed coefficients are presented in Sections 4.3.1–4.3.4).

Subsequently, this study employed the Bootstrap method in AMOS 26.0 to test the mediation effects, with the sample size set to 5,000 (typically requiringover 1,000) and the confidence interval level set to 95%, using bias-corrected confidence intervals to observe their upper and lower bounds. When the bias-corrected confidence interval of the indirect effect does not include 0, it indicates the presence of a mediation effect. For the direct effect's bias-corrected confidence interval: if it does not include 0, it signifies that the direct effect is also significant, indicating partial mediation; if it includes 0, it indicates complete mediation. The test results are shown in Table 3.

This study used Model 89 of the SPSS macro PROCESS to examine the moderating effect on this serial mediation. As shown in Table 4, after incorporating decent work perception into the serial mediation model, the overall model with academic resilience as the outcome variable yielded an R² = 0.318, indicating that the model explains 31.8% of the variance. The F-value was 0.318 (p < 0.001), reaching statistical significance.

The findings demonstrate that career calling is significantly and positively associated with doctoral students' academic resilience. This result validates Dalla Rosa, Galliani and Vianello's (2014) proposition that career calling serves as a core psychological resource. From the perspective of Career Construction Theory, career calling can be situated within a person's life themes and narrative identity, which organize how individuals interpret and respond to developmental tasks, transitions, and traumas in their career (Savickas, 2005). Calling supplies a narrative scaffold that helps doctoral students implement their self-concept in academic work. It clarifies who they are becoming (vocational self), why the work matters (life-theme meaning), and how they should respond to recurrent adaptation episodes such as proposal setbacks, manuscript rejections, and null results (Price, 2023).

Three proximal pathways follow. First, narrative coherence reduces role confusion and sustains hierarchies of goals, supporting persistence amid ambiguity typical of long-cycle research (Savickas, 2005; McAdams and McLean, 2013). Second, narrative purpose strengthens self-regulatory routines—prioritizing core tasks, strategic help-seeking, and deliberate practice—so stressors are framed as story-consistent challenges rather than threats, facilitating cognitive reappraisal and continued effort (Dik and Duffy, 2009; Savickas, 2005). Third, narrative continuity over time enables students to integrate setbacks into a broader, meaningful life story, a process linked to better emotional recovery and wellbeing, which undergirds resilient academic engagement (Adler et al., 2016; McAdams and McLean, 2013; Price, 2023).

In sum, CCT suggests that calling is linked to academic resilience not only by enhancing motivation but also by giving adversity a place in one's career narrative. This narrative framing helps maintain engagement when external rewards are delayed or uncertain (Savickas, 2005).

The study indicates that career calling is related to academic resilience through a serial process involving career adaptability and perceived future decent work.

First, career calling enhances academic resilience indirectly through career adaptability. Framed by Career Construction Theory (CCT), calling offers a coherent sense of “who I am becoming” and “why this work matters.” This clarity motivates doctoral students to mobilize adaptive resources and translate abstract vocational aspirations into concrete behaviors. According to CCT, doctoral students' career adaptability comprises four capacities: career concern (sustained responsibility for long-term academic goals), career control (agentic adjustment of research direction), career curiosity (openness to explore new fields or methods), and career confidence (belief in overcoming research setbacks; Savickas, 2005). This means that students with a strong sense of calling tend to set and protect long-term goals (concern), recalibrate strategies when facing obstacles (control), pursue interdisciplinary or methodological innovations (curiosity), and persist through failed experiments or critical feedback (confidence). Because career calling anchors academic work in enduring purpose and identity, doctoral students are more likely to view setbacks as role-consistent challenges. Such appraisals promote cognitive flexibility and reframing, reduce stress reactivity, and conserve personal resources, thereby strengthening academic resilience (Dik and Duffy, 2009; Price, 2023).

Second, career calling promotes academic resilience indirectly via perceived future decent work. CCT emphasizes future design and narrative projection—individuals actively imagine and script plausible work lives and then move toward those designs (Savickas, 2005). In this light, perceived future decent work operates as a future-oriented appraisal embedded in the student's career narrative: students who experience a stronger calling may construct more coherent and optimistic stories about securing fair, meaningful, and sustainable work conditions after graduation, and such expectations align the present effort with a valued future (Wei et al., 2022; Duffy et al., 2016). This prospective meaning-making helps students interpret near-term academic stressors as steps along a meaningful trajectory. This process aligns with the positive association observed between perceived future decent work and academic resilience.

Third, career calling influences academic resilience through the serial mediation of career adaptability followed by perceived future decent work. Career construction theory integrates these elements by emphasizing how adaptability in the present builds a coherent career narrative that extends into future expectations. In this path—illustratively in doctoral training contexts—students leverage adaptability to achieve tangible milestones (e.g., publishing papers or securing collaborations), which in turn strengthen perceptions of future decent work, such as stable academic positions or impactful contributions (Wen et al., 2024). This cumulative process creates a resilient ecosystem, where immediate adaptive behaviors reinforce long-term optimism, enabling students to reinterpret setbacks as steps toward a constructed career identity that sustains motivation and perseverance (Duffy et al., 2016).

This study demonstrates that decent work experiences significantly strengthen the positive associations between career calling, career adaptability, perceived future decent work, and academic resilience. In line with recent research, meeting safety and material needs is foundational for engagement and persistence (Loofbourrow, 2023; Repella et al., 2024; McKay et al., 2025), moreover contextual supports—beyond individual traits—are important for adaptive functioning (Awais et al., 2024).

Extending this to doctoral education, microsystem quality—supervision climate and peer support—proves pivotal for doctoral students' day-to-day adaptation and wellbeing; in addition, supportive working conditions (e.g., scholarships, facilities, and training) at the exosystem level further enable positive adjustment (Newlands et al., 2025; Xu W., et al., 2024). Together, these studies underscore decent work as a proximal contextual resource shaping how individual strengths translate into resilience. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems theory, these moderating effects can be understood through the interplay of microsystem elements in shaping adaptive outcomes. In this study, decent work functions as a high-quality microsystem that moderates the relationships by facilitating a co-evolutionary dynamic between environmental provisions (e.g., dignity-preserving policies and supportive academic structures) and individual agency (e.g., intrinsic motivation from career calling). Specifically, when doctoral students perceive their current work as decent, it enhances the translation of career calling into resilient behaviors by providing a stable foundation for meaning-making. It also bolsters career adaptability by enabling effective strategy implementation amid challenges. In addition, it reinforces perceived future decent work by creating a positive feedback loop in which present support builds confidence in long-term vocational fulfillment. From the vantage point of Career Construction Theory (Savickas, 2005), decent work in the current academic context functions as a narrative-supportive context that sustains the student's ongoing project of implementing the self in work. Conversely, when present conditions undermine dignity or safety, the holding power of the narrative weakens, and the same personal dispositions or expectations yield smaller resilience advantages. Complementing this perspective, Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of needs explains how decent work facilitates resource reallocation. By satisfying foundational needs, it frees cognitive and emotional resources that sustain calling, adaptability, and future work expectations as motivational drivers of resilience.