What's the term describing employer-employee and similar role relations?

What do you call a word relation such as employer-employee, parent-child, teacher-student or doctor-patient, i.e. the relation between two roles that are dependent on each other? You can generally only be an employee if there is an employer, you can only be a parent if there is a child (as in offspring, not minor), etc.

For some reason, I find the term antonym too general since the term I'm looking for would be for describing a very specific relationship between roles.

Solution 1:

Quite a late answer, but Wikipedia calls such pairs "Converses" or "Relational Antonyms"

In linguistics, converses or relational antonyms are pairs of words that refer to a relationship from opposite points of view, such as parent/child or borrow/lend. The relationship between such words is called a converse relation. Converses can be understood as a pair of words where one word implies a relationship between two objects, while the other implies the existence of the same relationship when the objects are reversed. [3] Converses are sometimes referred to as complementary antonyms because an "either/or" relationship is present between them. One exists only because the other exists.

Solution 2:

This may not be the specialized term you are looking for, but I would call them complementary.

Solution 3:

These are often referred to as "hierarchical" relationships, in that they are structured in a vertical way. One person is subordinate to the other.

Solution 4:

I think you mention a good way of saying this in your question: it is a "dependent relationship" as in "determined or conditioned by another". In their contexts, the role of one depends on the role of the other, regardless of any power balance or hierarchical nuances.

Solution 5:

If the essential point is that both parties benefit from the relationship, I would call it symbiotic.