The present invention provides a highly water-soluble and easy-to-handle dispersion stabilizer for suspension polymerization that meets the following requirements: even if the amount of the dispersion stabilizer for suspension polymerization used for suspension polymerization of a vinyl compound is small, the resulting vinyl resin has high plasticizer absorptivity and is easy to work with; it is easy to remove residual monomer components from the resulting vinyl resin; and the resulting vinyl resin contains fewer coarse particles. The present invention relates to a dispersion stabilizer for suspension polymerization of a vinyl compound. This dispersion stabilizer contains a vinyl alcohol polymer (A) having a degree of saponification of 20 mol% or more and less than 65 mol%, a viscosity average degree of polymerization (P) of 100 or more and less than 600, an aliphatic hydrocarbon group having 6 to 18 carbon atoms at its terminal, and an anionic group in its side chain.
