Born in 1954, Börsch-Supan studied economics and mathematics in Munich and Bonn, and was awarded a PhD in economics from M.I.T in Cambridge (USA) in 1984 under the supervision of Daniel McFadden. From 1984 to 1987, he was an assistant professor at the J.F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1987, he returned to Germany and taught for two years at the University of Dortmund. From 1989 to 2011, Börsch-Supan was affiliated with the University of Mannheim. Until 2011, he held the Chair of Macroeconomics and Economic Policy and was Director of the Institute of Economics and Statistics; from 2001, he was also Director of the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA), which he had founded. From 2011 to 2022, Börsch-Supan was a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, within which the MEA formed a new department. He was also the founder and, from 2002 to 2024, Executive Director of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Since 1 January 2023, he has been Director Emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy and Director of the Munich Research Institute for the Economics of Aging and SHARE Analyses (MEA), which has now been re-established as a gGmbH. 
Börsch-Supan is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Börsch-Supan is a permanent member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and was its Chair from 2004 to 2008; he is also a member of the ‘Demographic Change’ advisory group to the Federal President and of various Enquete and Pension Commissions. He chaired the pension reform group of the Sustainability (‘Rürup’) Commission.