Objective To systematically review the association between -589C/T polymorphism in IL-4 gene and the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Method PubMed, EMbase, CNKI and WanFang Data databases were electronically searched to identify case-control studies which investigated the association between IL-4 -589C/T polymorphism and the risk of COPD. The search date was up to February 23th, 2016. Two reviewers independently screened the studies, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies, and then meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 software. Results A total of 8 case-control studies involving 1 400 COPD cases and 1 073 controls were included in meta-analysis. The results showed that: the -589C/T polymorphism in IL-4 gene was not associated with the risk of COPD (TT+TC vs. CC: OR=0.84, 95%CI 0.61 to 1.15, P=0.27; TT vs. CC+TC: OR=0.95, 95%CI 0.72 to 1.25, P=0.69; TT vs. CC: OR=1.14, 95%CI 0.74 to 1.76, P=0.55; TC vs. CC: OR=0.83, 95%CI 0.66 to 1.05, P=0.12; T vs. C: OR=0.91, 95%CI 0.72 to 1.14, P=0.40). Conclusion The IL-4 -589C/T polymorphism is not associated with the risk of COPD.